


Into Oblivion

by SpaceWaffleHouseTM



Series: Faded Away Universe [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Actors, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ben falls hard, Ben is so fucking Bi, Bisexuality, F/M, Falling In Love, Fic Retelling, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, Multi, No Pregnancy, Past Ben Solo/Tai, bed sharing, mention of a past relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:00:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 73,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23252845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceWaffleHouseTM/pseuds/SpaceWaffleHouseTM
Summary: When Ben and his best friend and co-star Rey learn that their characters are going to have sex onscreen, he's completely cool with it. She, however, reveals to him that not only has she never filmed a sex scene, but she's never had sex in the first place. Wanting to be more comfortable and educated, she proposes a solution that changes their friendship forever.Or the events of And so the World Faded Away as seen through Ben's eyes.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Faded Away Universe [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1665811
Comments: 283
Kudos: 468
Collections: Queerly Beloved Reylo Fics





	1. New Feelings

**Author's Note:**

> This first chapter is honestly the same thing as the first chapter of AstWFA, but there's a little bonus scene at the end.

The news of the summer of 2019 was a relatively boring affair. Nothing much of import happened in the world, well, a ton of things happened in the world, but depending on who was reading it, none of that mattered. What did matter was that the beloved fantasy drama Duel of Knights was back for its third season, and production had just been announced to have started, sending fan theorists into a frenzy, and online polls started up in droves to guess just what would happen this next season. 

They wondered whether the dark or light side would win, whether the kingdom of Alderaan would fall or work together with that of Mustafar, whether the relationship between Storm and Flyboy was just queerbaiting or an actual romance that was blossoming to life. 

Above all, though, they wondered whether the slow burn between Kylo Ren and Kira, the black and white knights respectively, would finally hookup after a season’s long slow burn. After a tiny kiss at the end of the second season before they were cruelly wrenched away by their opposing sides, many suspected the two would be starting a forbidden romance rather soon. 

As of the first meeting for season three episode three, those people were right. 

On a hot day just before fall truly began settling in, the actors portraying the lead characters of Kylo Ren and Kira were at a top-secret meeting which no one would be allowed to attend but them, two writers, the series creator, and the episode’s director. Not even any of the other cast was allowed to attend, and Ben Solo and Rey Johnson were only allowed on the signature of an intensive NDA. 

The two sat at a desk opposite Poe Dameron as he informed them that together, they'd be filming a sex scene, one that would change television as they knew it. The biggest sex scene of all time. Ben was fine with it. Rey, however, didn't seem nearly as comfortable, and he could tell. Her posture, though confident and poised as always, showed hints of fear. She was curled in ever so slightly, looking almost as if she wanted to be anywhere else, and though she said she was cool with the idea of filming the scene, he could tell something was wrong.

Throughout all three years of filming so far, he had been her best friend, had loved her as such and knew her inside and out. If something was up, they knew they could count on each other. There was a bond between them that ran deeper than most he'd ever felt. They had met because of _Duel of Knights_ , but they would remain friends long after the show was over. 

If Rey was nervous, he knew about it, and since their boss had just told them they'd be getting naked on camera together, he had a feeling he knew why. 

He wasn't going to call her out for it in front of their boss, though. He needed to handle this delicately-- _very_ delicately. If something was wrong, she didn't even owe him an explanation for it, but if she wanted to, maybe--maybe he could help her. Maybe they could figure this out together.

They would figure out how to get through what was bothering her, they had faced many more challenges together, this was just the latest in a long line. It was just a test. He would comfort her, just like she'd done for him a thousand times. 

In theory, it sounded simple, easy even, but life, ever the notorious bitch, never made things simple, did it?

*

Several hours later after they were done filming for the day, he was greeted by the sight of Rey leaning against her car waiting for him to meet her in the lot. That day, they’d gotten him dressed in full battle regalia, so of course it would take him a second longer to undress in comparison to her, but still, given what had transpired that morning in the meeting room, he’d been eager to get out of there as quickly as possible to talk with her about what Poe had told them. 

As he approached, he watched as she ran her hand through her hair as her head thunked against the black paint of her car, and he knew that the stress of that morning had most definitely not escaped her. 

“Rey!” 

Whatever was going on must’ve been worse than he thought; she jumped when she heard her name, yelling quietly as she clutched at her chest in surprise. “Christ, Ben.”

“You okay?” he asked as he got closer, not bothering to walk over to the passenger side first. If this was an ‘I need a hug,’ type situation, he wanted to be as close to her as possible, but also have some distance between them in case it was the opposite. Of course, he still rested a gentle hand on her arm, wanting to calm her with the warmth she always said tended to radiate from his skin, and he caught sight of a tiny break in her fear. 

_There she is,_ his mind supplied. _There's my best friend._

“Yeah, you just-you scared me,” she told him, interrupting his thoughts. 

Ben frowned, feeling confused all over again, then his hand fell from her arm, and he shook his head. “No, I mean… obviously just now you were jumpy, but—“ He sighed, knowing he had to start a conversation that would possibly be more difficult than either of them wanted it to be. Still, he had to do it. The key to any relationship—whether platonic or not—was communication, and he’d always prided himself on how good they were at doing that with each other. It was, perhaps, their greatest strength. “You’ve seemed a little bit off all day. Is something going on?”

“I-I-“ she stuttered, then she froze, and those sweet, terrified eyes met his again, and he knew this was the wrong place for this conversation to be had. 

Smiling as kindly as he possibly could, he stepped back. “It’s about what Poe told us earlier, isn’t it?” he asked, leaning a hand against the roof of her car. 

She nodded. “Yeah. I’ve been thinking about it all day, and I shouldn’t let it get to me, but—“

“You don’t want to do it?” Ben answered for her, suddenly fearing that the problem with his scene would have nothing to do with him being a moron, but with her fear. 

“I do.” Her voice was sturdy, but waived just enough to indicate something was wrong. With a trembling hand, she reached forward to grab his, holding it casually as had become a habit between takes. “But can we talk about this on the road? It’s getting late.”

Suspicious, he gave her a quick once over, then the corners of his mouth twitched, and he bobbed his head. “Yeah, let’s get home.”

They then parted ways, moving to their respective sides of the car before they hopped in, and she started the engine, bringing them out onto the road. 

Once they were driving, Ben didn’t hesitate to start asking questions. “So what’s going on with you?”

She scoffed in what he thought was disbelief. “You could barely contain yourself, could you?”

Heat flooded his body, and he laughed nervously as they came upon a red light. “Sorry, that was rude of me, what I meant was; is this something that’s going to be invasive of your personal space or is it something I need to know?”

She paused for a second, and as he looked at her out of the corner of his eye, he realized she was looking at him. No, not just looking at him, looking at him and almost smiling. “It’s—it’s something you need to know.”

 _Oh god._ “And it relates to the sex scene we’re supposed to film soon?”

“Uh huh.”

Something about this still made her uncomfortable, but what? He had a feeling she wanted to do it, but what about it was uncomfortable? Was it the fact that they were friends? That they’d only ever kissed and that was on camera? What was it? “But it’s not that you don’t want to do it.”

“I do.”

“So, can I ask what’s bothering you about the scene?” he asked quietly, then he rested his hand on the side of her seat as she turned onto the next road. “Cause whatever it is, I can see the conflict it’s creating within you written plain as day on your face. You’re a great actress, Rey, but you can’t hide this from me. What’s going on?”

He heard her breathe in deeply, then she slowed the car to a stop at the next sign, gripped the steering wheel tightly, and closed her eyes. “I’ve never filmed a sex scene,” she whispered, then she glanced at him, seeming to expect some sort of reaction, but he didn’t feel anything weird or different. 

That was it? Really? He could definitely help her through that. Plenty of actors didn’t film sex scenes until well into their established careers. He’d only filmed a couple before himself. 

“Oh, that’s fine, I’ll help you through it.” Then he smiled at her, slipping his hand ever so slightly down on her seat closer to her shoulder, unsure if she’d want him to touch her right then. “It’s kind of awkward, but that’s what they have the intimacy choreographers for. We’ll get through it. Don’t worry.”

Her breath hissed, then she shook her head, and he sensed that the real ball was about to drop. “No, Ben, it’s not just that. I…” Deep breath again. “I’ve never had sex for real, either. I’m-I’m a virgin.”

 _Ah. There it is._ His eyes went wide, his lips parting softly as he processed what she’d just told him, and suddenly a whole lot of tumblers began to turn in his head. She’d never told him that. It simply hadn’t ever come up, and suddenly a lot of things about her made sense. She was always a little awkward when they kissed onscreen--not with her lips, never her lips, she was an excellent kisser--her hands never sure where they could touch him, but he’d always just thought that was part of a character. He’d never thought-- “Oh my god.”

Rey put the car back in motion, and he suddenly felt embarrassed at his initial reaction. She didn’t need him to look at her like that. She needed him to listen and talk to her like a good best friend would. She needed him to be there for her. “That’s why I’ve been at war with myself all day. I’ve never filmed a sex scene or been taught how to do one, and I’ve never had sex, and no matter how good of an actress you think I am, I’m just-I’m nervous about how this’ll play out.”

Ben paused for a moment, then his hand rested gently on her shoulder. _Best friend mode activated_. “We’ll figure something out.” 

She scoffed as she finally pulled up to his place, rolling into the parking lot of his building as visible frustration twisted her expression. “Like what? I have no experience with this. At least with things involving grief of any sort I can have something to pull from, but…” Gripping the steering wheel a little more tightly, she turned into a parking space, debating with herself whether or not she really wanted to tell him this as she looked at him. “Ben the only sexual experience I have is kissing you on screen. And one shitty makeout session in high school.”

The first tendrils of an idea took root in his brain, then he shook his head, then gestured to the ignition. “Turn that off and come inside.” They needed to talk about this, discuss it until they either agreed not to do the scene, or she was comfortable enough to do it. He trusted her to be naked and vulnerable with him. It was a matter of if she trusted him to be naked and vulnerable with _her._

“Why?” 

“Cause you look scared as hell and we need more time to talk,” he said, getting out of the car before he looked at her expectantly. He didn’t want her to leave without them having this conversation, but he wasn’t going to force her into anything she didn’t want to do. 

They were better than that. 

Groaning quietly, Rey put the car in park, and joined him, slamming the door a bit more dramatically than he thought was necessary as he led her through the parking lot to his apartment. “Can’t I just go home to sulk in peace?”

“Not unless you want to tell Poe you don’t want to do the scene,” he replied, holding open a door for her that led to the main part of the building. “Which I’m fine with, but if you do want to do it, then we need to talk. So tell me, and be honest… do you want to film this scene?”

They fell into silence as they walked down the hallway, allowing them both a moment to think it over. He only wanted to film the scene if she did. If Rey didn’t want this, he didn’t either, he realized as they approached the elevator. As he pressed the up button, his costar gave him a firm nod. “Yeah, I’m sure, I just need to get… more comfortable with this before we proceed.”

“How?” 

The elevator dinged a second later, and they both walked on in unison, Rey leaning back against the wall as he pressed the button for his floor. “I don’t know, maybe I’ll just watch a lot of porn or something.”

Beside her, he choked on his breath, then began to laugh stupidly hard. That sounded like a very Rey solution. Watch and learn. “Watching porn?”

“Do you have any better ideas, genius?”

“No, but—” Ben scratched his nose, taking in a deep breath to calm his laughter before speaking again. “Rey, I don’t know how much porn you’ve seen, but it’s all unrealistic, poorly-acted bullshit.”

“I just figured it’d be an easy way to get some experience without having a partner.”

Ben’s keys jingled in his hand as he pulled them out from his jacket pocket, feeling Rey’s eyes on him the entire time as the atmosphere in the air shifted slightly. _That was weird_. “You don’t need to have a partner to have sex—well, not a romantic one.” He let a tiny smirk slip on his face as they approached his apartment, then he put the keys in the lock. “You just need to find someone you trust.”

She fell quiet for a second, and he sensed it again, that atmospheric shift, like the air pressure dropping right before a thunderstorm, but it wasn’t going to rain any time soon. He’d checked the forecast that morning. “Someone I trust?” 

“Yeah, like a friend, someone who wouldn’t judge you no matter what kind of stupid shit you did,” he replied as he shut the door behind them. 

Rey walked into his living room ahead of him, and he followed suit, leaning against a nearby wall . His gaze grew curious as she sat down on a massive black couch, and clasped her hands together before leaning them against her knees. “Someone like you?” she asked quietly, causing his legs to give out beneath him as he stumbled forward wondering what the hell he’d just heard. Did Rey… did she just suggest she wanted to have sex with him? He wasn’t exactly opposed, per se, but he thought he might’ve been about two seconds from having a stroke. Up until now, he’d never thought about or considered having sex with her, but now…

Now he was picturing it. He couldn’t _stop_ picturing it. His bedroom was right fucking there. What would happen if he just took her in there and-?

“Ben?” she whispered, interrupting his thoughts.

“I-I-I guess,” he sputtered, then he ran a hand through his hair, dark waves spilling over his face as he processed what she just said. “A-Rey-I—“

She stood up quickly, crossing the room, taking his hands in hers as she looked into his eyes. “You don’t have to, but I just—I trust you more than anything and my other close friends are in London, so… can you help me?”

His breath hitched from a fresh wave of shock. “Help you with—with what?” 

“Sex. The whole thing. All of it. Or just whatever will make this believable.” She closed her eyes as she spoke, seeming unable to look him in the eye. “If you’re up for it, that is.”

Oh god, she’d just… she’d just asked him to… holy shit, holy shit, holy shit. His brain stopped computing thoughts. He felt like he’d completely shut down but it wasn’t bad, it was just… this was so delicate. They needed to handle this delicately, especially given her inexperience. His top priority in this needed to be making sure she was comfortable and that he never pushed her, because if he did that, if he ruined what they had between them, he’d never be able to live with himself. Rey was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Their friendship was the most valuable thing that existed in the universe, and if he lost it, he didn’t know what he’d do with himself. 

Still, he wanted to help her. The best part of their friendship--well, one of the best parts, in his opinion--was that they’d do anything for each other. Including, apparently, taking her fucking virginity. “Yeah, okay, sure whatever you need.”

“Awesome.”

“But we need to take it slow. Okay? We’ve got a week until the intimacy choreographer comes in, and we’ve got even more time after that to get a scene together,” he told her. “And I don’t want to rush you into anything.”

“Okay.”

“You’re in charge, always and completely.” His entire chest shuddered on his next breath, and he thought he might’ve been the more nervous of the two in that moment. “Rey, it’s all up to you. What we do, how we do it, when we start…” Shit. “When do you want to start?”

No hesitation. “Can we start tonight?” she asked, then she held a finger over his lips as if she could sense his protests before he even put them into words. “I’m already here, we start rehearsing with a choreographer very soon, and if we’re starting small, then… let’s just jump right in.”

“Are you—?”

“I’m sure.” 

And suddenly, he believed her, and his wits finally returned to him as he gestured to the couch behind her. “We should um, we should sit down then, and I’ll uh… I’ll grab us some drinks—if I have anything that isn’t alcohol.”

“Why would it matter if we have alcohol?”

“I mean, if we have a little it’s probably fine, but it lowers your inhibitions and thus your ability to consent,” he said, then he shrugged. “I’m not exactly a sex expert, but I feel like that part’s pretty important.”

“Not a sex expert?” She walked over to the couch, sitting down as he walked into his kitchen, and opened up his fridge, pulling out two cans of coke before he shut it, and made his way back over to her. 

As he sat down beside her, he offered her a can, waiting for her to accept it before he got comfortable, and rested an arm lazily around her shoulders. He wasn’t sure exactly why, but if they were about to be as intimate as he thought, they might as well start off with the most classic of maneuvers, the, ‘oh god, I’m tired, gotta yawn,’ maneuver many a man had used during a movie date. _But this isn’t a date, you fool, it’s just a way to make her comfortable,_ he told himself. “I just mean, yeah, I’ve done it a few times with a few different people, but I’m not the most experienced guy in Hollywood you could be doing this with.”

“I don’t think you need to be an expert,” she replied, then she took a sip of her coke. “I believe you said something about how I just need to trust you. And you clearly know more than me.”

A small laugh escaped him as he sipped his own drink. “That’s fair,” he replied, then he set the coke down, and summoning forth his courage, he let his hand come up to caress one of her cheeks, watching her breath catch in her chest. “But I trust you understand the basic mechanics. You’re not clueless yourself.”

“Yeah, but… what are you doing?” She set her coke down, and he felt his heart start racing inexplicably in his chest as he let his eyes flicker down to her lips. He’d never kissed them out of character before, he realized. They’d only ever kissed off camera while rehearsing stuff. _Fuck,_ he was nervous. What if he fucked this up? 

Shaking his nerves off, he let his hand drift down half an inch so he was almost closer to her jaw. “If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it right,” he told her, then he leaned forward until he was in her space, his eyes staring into hers as he moved close enough that he could lean forward and kiss her if he wanted to. She leaned into the touch, seeming to feel the pull of whatever magnet seemed to suddenly exist between them. 

Somehow, he sensed, that regardless of circumstance, regardless of the conversation or actions taken by either of them, that they’d somehow twisted fate, that somehow this was just inevitable. They were going to kiss here and now no matter what happened. Swallowing, he shook his head at the marvel consuming his inner thoughts, and continued to lean in. “So I’m going to kiss you, if you’re all right with that. I’m going to kiss you as Ben Solo, and not Kylo Ren, and I want you to kiss me as Rey, not Kira.”

God, this was exhilarating. They hadn’t even kissed yet, and already he felt like his body was on fire, he was burning, but this fire brought him nothing but joy. Suddenly he could sense a change in his very being, his soul, and though he’d not quite kissed her yet, he--no, that thought couldn’t take shape yet, it wasn’t quite done, he hadn’t finished--

“It’ll be okay, just trust me,” he whispered, then he was close enough that his eyes closed as he anticipated the kiss, the memory of her hooded eyes imprinted on his lids as he leaned in closer and closer, his hand snaking its way to the base of her skull, fingers burying themselves in her hair as he pulled her in those last few inches. His heart was still thudding in his chest, and it became loud enough that it was the only sound he could hear when he finally felt her lips brush over his, and suddenly that thought he’d been starting made sense. 

_Oh no,_ this was going to change everything, wasn’t it? No, that was… no, surely he was overreacting, wasn’t he? And yet it all felt different, so he kissed her softly, gently, like she was someone he cared for deeply--and she was--like she was someone he didn’t just love, but… oh he couldn’t finish that thought. Not without ensuring everything would never be the same again. 

_Fuck, fuck, fuck_. He shouldn’t have done this. Kissing her was a mistake, he never should’ve made this. He couldn’t tell if she felt the same change, or--

She began returning his kiss with more ferocity, and his mind stopped working.

Something about it felt inexplicably wonderful in a way no other kiss had ever felt. Ben wrapped an arm around her waist and began to lower her down onto the couch cushions, and feeling her warmth beneath him made him feel as if he was the one who was experiencing all of this for the first time. 

His actual first time had been a tender, loving thing, but… thinking about that boy he’d given himself to had nothing on the feeling of kissing Rey. He hadn’t felt anything like this since that person had left his life. They… 

It was too late to turn back now, wasn’t it? He could try to pass this off as just lust, maybe he just hadn’t jerked off in a while, but they’d been kissing for a minute now and he hadn’t given his dick the slightest bit of thought. 

Whatever it was, it wasn’t lust.

He broke the kiss briefly as he brought his legs onto the couch, gesturing for her to do the same so she was properly lying beneath him, and he paused as he looked at her for the first time in the aftermath of the kiss. 

It was exactly as he’d predicted. He felt like he was seeing her for the first time, like he was looking through glasses after years of being unable to see. Yep, he’d just unlocked some new feelings. _Cool, great_ , it was now time to deny them until she either returned them or he finally got rid of them, because this was going to be a pain in the ass, but… he didn’t want to lose her. He couldn’t lose her.

Realizing she was still waiting for him to act, to move, to do something, he cleared his throat, and gestured down. “Can you, um, spread your legs? We’ll uh… fit better.”

She obeyed his request, parting her legs to allow him to fit better on top of her as they adjusted to this new position. The more he settled down onto her, the more certain he became that she could feel his erection pressing against the apex of her thighs, and yet he found that remarkably appealing. She was warm, hot, and if he thought hard enough, he thought she might’ve even been wet even through both of their clothes. 

Good to know she at least thought that kiss was as good as he did. 

“Is this okay?” Ben asked her, glancing over her face to see if there was any sign that it wasn’t. “Cause if you want to go back to what we were doing before—?”

“This is good,” she promised him, giving a hurried nod as she reburied her hands in his hair. “I promise, Ben, this is perfect.”

Good, good, then she at least liked touching him. At least on a platonic level, she still wanted him. All he had to do now was focus on making her feel good, and force himself to forget about his new-- _very annoying_ \--feelings when they were together. 

That was going to be fun.

Not allowing himself another second to overthink this, Ben leaned forward, and pressed his lips against hers in a short but sweet kiss. “Okay. Let me know if even a tiny part of you wants to stop.”

“I will.”

“Good, then follow my lead, and I promise, this’ll be way easier than you think,” he said softly, then he was kissing her again, and the entire world was spinning at the speed of light as she returned it. 

Not a second later, he felt himself grow even harder as she gasped against his lips as he shifted his hips, his erection grinding against the apex of her thighs as pure pleasure coursed through him. 

Much to his shock and delight, she then repeated the motion against him, and he started wondering if he’d be able to survive this as they began to grind against one another in earnest. Finding a rhythm with her was easy, shockingly easy, and he started to think that maybe, just maybe, they’d been heading for this from the beginning. It felt _good_ being with Rey, really fucking good in a way that made him want to scream with every brush of his erection against the apex of her thighs. 

Soft moans escaped her into the kiss as his hands began to wander, pressing against her hips, her waist, grabbing at her hair, and gently grazing the edges of her chest, asking permission to touch her everywhere she would allow. He nearly stuttered in his control when she reached down and grabbed one of his hands, guiding it gently up to rest on the swell of one of her breasts as he continued his ministrations at the apex of her thighs. 

He smirked as he kissed her, knowing two could play at this game, and it was time to stop worrying about his emotions and start having fun. Without another moment’s hesitation, his lips disappeared from her mouth, leaving a trail down onto her neck as his thumb grazed over her nipple through the layers of her clothing. She gasped against him again, and he thought that sound might’ve been one of the sexiest he’d ever heard. 

And it was, it really was. 

His lips closed around her neck by her pulse point, and they began to suck a mark into her skin that she was going to have a bitch of a time explaining to the makeup team in the morning, but he didn’t care. All he could think about were the tiny little whimpers she made against his mouth, the way she didn’t seem to care about the lack of oxygen she was providing to her brain, she was so lost in him. 

Rey’s reaction to this first coming together between them was riveting, and he never wanted to stop drowning himself in it. 

One of her legs hooked around one of his, pulling him even closer those little gasps and moans grew louder and more frequent, and he started guessing she was close. That realization made him come to a similar conclusion about himself, and he started wondering if it would be possible for them to fall apart at the same time. Between each kiss that Ben pressed to her skin, each mark he left, they were both becoming short of breath, and he wondered how long it would be before she finally tumbled over with him, and they--

“ Ben, ” she whispered as his teeth tugged gently at her ear lobe, then another mark was sucked just a little ways down as he moaned against her skin, living for the way her pulse was racing beneath his lips. “Ben, I’m gonna— fuck, I’m gonna come,” she breathed, and in response his lips found hers again in a searing kiss that had him nearly losing control, nearly falling apart on top of her, but he needed to hold on just a little bit longer.

Luckily, she didn’t have the same restraint. A second later, Rey gave a muffled cry against his mouth as he continued grinding against her, and he knew she’d finally come, and she pulled back from the kiss to gasp for air. His face buried itself in her neck as he worked her through it, every thrust of his hips getting more erratic as he brought himself closer to finishing, then as she began to fall quiet, he knew he’d reached that same point of no return. “Rey,” he whispered against her neck, those feelings he had been thinking of earlier bubbling beneath the surface--

She bucked her hips against his to give him that extra friction through his orgasm, and he shivered on top of her as they slowly came to a halt, and the air seemed to smolder around them. There were embers from a distant and fading fire washing in on a breeze that existed only in his soul, and though this had only just begun, he knew everything had just changed. 

Slowly, they stopped moving, both lying still save for the heaving of their chests as they fought to fill their lungs with oxygen. One of Rey’s hands reached up a few seconds later, stroking Ben’s hair as he shuddered on top of her, shocked by the intimacy of the touch. It felt tender, sweet, and borderline loving, and he supposed he did love Rey, but it was supposed to just be platonic. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, but maybe it was always supposed to be this intimate. He’s just become the person with whom she shared her first sexual encounter, the first person to make her come beside herself, and that bonds them in a new way, he thinks. He’s always going to be her first in a way even if they never go any further. He’s the first, and that will never change. 

A minute later, Ben pulled away, propping himself on his elbows as he looked at her through hooded eyes and hair that he imagined was thoroughly sex tangled if hers was anything to go by. She looked beautiful like this, sex flushed and breathless, skin glistening ever so slightly beneath a sheen of sweat. He’d done good, he thought, satisfaction blossoming within him as he stared down at her, the hand on her breast sliding over to rest over her beating heart before ascending to her neck, his fingers sweeping over his pulse point before they wrapped around the juncture of her neck and spine, and he pulled her in for a lazy, slow kiss that seemed to make time itself stand still. 

Rey’s eyes drifted shut as she kissed him back, the hand in his hair bringing him in close again as she felt his weight settle over her. Maybe that should’ve felt overbearing, maybe it should’ve made her feel like she couldn’t breathe or that she couldn’t escape, but it felt fucking nice. It felt amazing in ways she couldn’t even describe, and if this was how their first encounter where she had absolutely no experience had gone, she wondered what it would be like by the time they filmed their sex scene. 

“When we get on camera,” Ben started as he pulled away, and locked eyes with her once more. “When we’re filming, I want you to think of that, I want you to do that, except our bodies won’t actually be touching there. But I want you to remember how this feels, because that’s what you and I both need to channel.”

She nodded. “Of course,” she said breathlessly. “Yeah, I can do that.”

A smile blossomed on his face as he nodded, and the embers he’d felt floating around them finally left them alone. “I know you can.” Then he backed away entirely, finally feeling free of the post-coital haze that had developed between them. “Cause shit, Rey, you’re a natural.”

She rolled her eyes as they both sat up again, stretching out their newly sore muscles as time passed. “You’re just being nice to me.”

“No.” He shook his head as he rested a hand on her shoulder, wanting her to know that she’d just made him feel… he didn’t even have words for it. “I mean it. You… I haven’t come that hard in ages. Are you sure you’ve never done this before?”

A small giggle escaped her as she shoved him playfully. “Shut up.” She was blushing. An oddly adorable, pink flush was coating her cheeks, and he couldn’t stop grinning at her as he gently rubbed her shoulder. “You meant it then?”

“Every word.”

“Good,” she replied, then she leaned back against the couch cushions with a sigh. “Cause this is only the beginning.”

 _Only the beginning_. His heart was racing at the thought, but she was right. He could sense somewhere deep in his gut that it was indeed the beginning, but it was more than just the start of this thing between them. It was the beginning of something else, and it was going to hit him far more quickly than he could ever anticipate. 

Rey yawned then, and he realized as he looked over at the clock in his kitchen that it was getting rather late. He probably needed to send her home, or… he looked at the couch they were currently sitting on. Sleeping there didn’t seem so bad, he could do it for the night and surrender his bedroom to her. Couldn’t he?

It was late, she seemed exhausted, maybe he could… “Do you have enough energy to drive home?” he found himself asking, and she looked over at him with shock in her eyes. 

“What, like, spend the night here?”

“It’s just late, I have a bed, and I don’t mind sleeping on the couch if you want to just pass out.” Shrugging, he gestured to the couch. “It’s comfortable.”

 _And it probably smells like you right now,_ his mind helpfully supplied, but with a slight grimace, he waved off that thought. 

Laughing, Rey nodded, then she looked down at her clothes. “I don’t have anything to wear.”

“Welcome to hookup one oh one,” he replied, watching as she burst into giggles, leaning back against the couch as she covered her face with her hands. “I’m Professor Solo, and I’ll be your instructor for today. Lesson one: it’s a rite of passage to stay the night at your sexual partner’s house and then awkwardly leave in the morning in the same clothes you wore last night.”

Snorting her amusement, Rey lightly smacked his arm, then shook her head. “You fucking dick, I’m not going to leave your place awkwardly in the morning. We’re actually friends.”

“I didn’t think you would, but that tends to be how it goes,” he said, then he stood, wincing at the feeling of his drying cum against his skin as he moved. “I’m a mess, so I’m gonna go change and clean myself off, but you’re more than welcome to take the bedroom. If you want.”

She looked at him for a few seconds, blinking slowly as she watched him cross his arms over his chest, something unreadable in her eyes as she looked up at him, and a small smile tugged at her lips. “I think I will,” she said, then she stood, and his heart started inexplicably pounding in his chest as she stepped toward him, pressing a kiss to his cheek. 

As she pulled away, and walked into the bedroom with a, “Good night!” sing-songed happily behind her, he felt like his cheek was on fire. _Oh no._ He remembered this feeling, and he remembered it well. He thought back to what he’d been thinking while they’d kissed. He’d felt that feeling creeping in again, and now… now he was feeling confirmation of it--it was fucking _real_. It meant something now, it meant everything had changed, and as he walked over to his spare bathroom to clean himself off, he knew Rey was right. 

_This was only the beginning._


	2. Falling Not so Slowly at All

The next morning, Ben quietly snuck into his bedroom to change clothes, his fingers wrapping around the golden doorknob as he closed his eyes as if that would help hide him if Rey woke up while he was doing this. Somehow, he had a feeling she wouldn’t hate him if he did, but he still wanted her to get as much sleep as possible. Odds were, if she was anything like him, she’d wake up feeling a bit weird for a couple of seconds about what had happened the night before, and so it was best if he let her be as comfortable as possible. 

That and, well, he wasn’t quite ready to face her yet. Not before breakfast. Maybe if he ate some fucking food his newfound feelings would go away and things would return to normal. 

So he walked into his own bedroom, feeling sufficiently like some kind of stalker as he listened to the sound of her breathing, making sure it was still even as he made his way over to the dresser, and carefully opened his top drawer. At this, he heard her stir in her sleep, but when he looked over, she’d simply shifted onto her side. He still paused as he watched her settle, unable to help the smile that bloomed on his face as he let his eyes wash over her for a few seconds. 

_ Fuck,  _ that was so out of line. He shouldn’t have been watching her fucking sleep, but as he grabbed the first pair of pajama pants he could find from the drawer, he could feel his heart start beating a little faster, and he knew this was more than just watching. He’d been looking at her like he had the night before, like he was seeing her for the first time. 

Sighing, he walked back out of the room, and shut the doors as quietly as he could before stealing away to the bathroom to change his clothes. Could he technically change in the living room? Yeah, but he didn’t want Rey to walk out and see him changing in the middle of what was supposed to be a public space. Sure, they were going to see each other naked by the end of this arrangement anyway--and  _ fuck, _ if that didn’t make him dizzy--but there was still something weird about it. This was still new. He didn’t need to fuck it up early on. 

Feeling suddenly as if the room was too hot, Ben quickly removed the shirt he’d been wearing the night before, his hands hurriedly undoing the button of his jeans the moment it left his body. There suddenly seemed to be a sheen of sweat coating his skin, and he knew that once he’d changed clothes, he’d need a minute to calm down. “Breathe,” he whispered to himself. “We need to breathe.”

He wasn’t sure who “we” was, but he didn’t care. All he could worry about was making sure he didn’t look like pure shit or a complete, out of control dork when Rey eventually walked out of his bedroom--and going by the time, she’d have to do so soon in order for them to get to set on time. 

Somehow, he managed to get his pants off and trade them for Gwen’s old Mickey Mouse pants, and as he looked in the mirror, he knew damn well he looked absolutely ridiculous, but that was a good thing. If things were to feel like normal between him and Rey that morning, a healthy dose of humor seemed like exactly the thing to make everything feel at peace. He looked absolutely ridiculous in those pants, always had, but he considered it a prize to have stolen it. 

Especially since Gwen still didn’t know who’d taken them. He deserved a fucking award for his larceny skills. 

Deciding to forego a shirt--the temperature of the room still felt like it was about five hundred degrees hotter than normal--he walked out into his kitchen, and set about making breakfast. 

Five minutes later, eggs were frying on a pan, and he was reaching into his fridge for bacon, laying out pieces on another pan before turning his attentions back on the eggs. Deciding they were done, he put them onto separate plates he’d gotten out of his cabinets, and then focused on the bacon. 

Of course, the second he was focusing on the bacon was the second that he heard the sound of someone taking in a short, sharp breath, and he tossed her a glance over his shoulder, smiling at the sight of a very sleep addled Rey. Her hair was mussed, her clothes wrinkled from having been slept in, and he found his smile growing a little wider as he watched her walk into the room. “How’d you sleep?” 

“Decently enough,” she replied as she walked up to his kitchen counter and leaned against it as he returned to cooking, flipping the bacon over as he felt her eyes wash over his body. “Nice trousers.”

“They’re Gwen’s,” he explained, then he reached forward to shut off the stove as the bacon finished cooking. “Stole them from her place after one too many tequila shots at the season two wrap party.”

Another chuckle. “Ah, I see. Does she know you have them?”

“No, and I want to keep it that way.” He pointed a spatula in her direction, a sternness in his eyes as he looked at her, but he was smiling just a little bit. “You spill a word of this to Gwen, I’ll kill you.”

Her eyes rolled back in her head, but she nodded. “Okay, I know nothing. Not a word.”

Ben straightened up, and turned his attention back on the bacon, distributing it to the two plates with fried eggs before he laid the spatula and pan on the stove, and handed her one of them. “Good, then we need to eat quickly. We’ve gotta be on set—“

“Within the hour,” she finished for him, then she bowed her head. “I know.” As Ben smiled at her and put his plate down on the counter, she cleared her throat, and suddenly the atmosphere of the room seemed to change. “Ben? What are we going to do about the set?”

“What do you mean?” His mouth was already full of bacon, his speech mumbled as he wondered why she was asking him about the set--

“I mean, it’s going to look suspicious when we show up today covered in hickeys and I’m wearing yesterday’s clothes.” She inhaled slowly, then she grabbed hold of the fork he’d given her, twirling it casually in the air. “So what do you want to do?”

_ Oh _ . He held up a finger. “Let’s… try to tell as few people as possible, and if anyone asks, let’s just say we were bored. Unless you’re comfortable with everyone knowing why we’re really doing this.”

She shook her head. “No, it was weird enough telling you.”

Shit, she was uncomfortable. He knew he’d crossed a line, he just knew it. “Oh.”

Fear of a different sort filled her eyes, and she shook her head just as he knew he was starting to look defeated, she was quick to correct herself. “I just mean, you saw how much I struggled to get it out yesterday, so… let’s keep things… quiet? But, just so you know, I don’t regret last night.”

Hope filling him again, he met her gaze. “No?”

“Not at all,” she admitted, then she ran a hand through her hair. “I had a lot of fun, actually.”

A tiny smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, then he laughed as he took another bite of bacon. “Well, that’s good, if you’re not having fun, you shouldn’t be doing it.” He wiped a bit of grease from his chin, then his expression turned serious. “And, Rey?”

“Hmm?” 

“If there’s ever a moment during any of this when you feel uncomfortable, just tell me and we’ll stop.” He didn’t want to stop, not now, but he cared about her more than he cared about himself. She was his first priority now, and he’d sort of missed feeling like this for another person.

Wherever this was going, he was excited to see it. 

“I know,” she replied, then she glanced at something behind him. “But we don’t really have time for another lecture right now, so let’s eat and run.” 

Ben looked back at the clock--so  _ that _ was what she’d been looking at--then he shuddered, not even bothering to nod in agreement before they both dove into the plates of food he’d set out for them. As quickly as two people possibly could, they scarfed down their food, he changed his clothes, then they hurriedly grabbed their things as they rushed out the door, and made their way to his elevators. 

“Whose car are we taking?” she asked, and he remembered that hers was still in the parking garage from their impromptu sleepover the night before. 

“You mind driving? That way tonight you can actually drop me off and… go home to change.”

He pressed the down button, then she leaned against the wall as she glared at him. “I’m going to costuming first fucking thing. I’m not letting everyone see that I’m wearing the same clothes.”

“Maybe take off the jacket, it’ll be less noticeable.”

A scoff was thrown his way as the doors opened, and the two of them walked on, and a smirk blossomed on his face. “Next time we do this, it’ll be at my place so you can do the walk of shame.”

Ben snorted as the doors closed, and the elevator moved down, taking them back down to the parking lot. They fell quiet after that, but the smirk on his face still remained as he remembered why she was currently doing a walk of shame. Apparently, she was feeling the same, since she couldn’t seem to meet his eyes as they walked out to her car together. 

As they drove to work that morning, he kept on staring at her even when they weren’t talking. Every chance he had, he took a look at her neck, her lips, her face, taking stock of what he’d done to her the night before. Her neck was coated in little bruises he’d left with his lips, and he imagined his was much the same, but seeing Rey with that stern, tense expression she always had when she was driving, hickeys he’d left coating her skin nearly drove him over the edge. 

It was the sexiest she’d ever been in his eyes, and he knew she could feel him staring. At the third traffic light they stopped at, she finally gave him a tiny chuckle. “They’re that obvious, huh?”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” he mumbled, and suddenly he could feel himself blushing. “I’ll try to be better at the placement next time, but you might have to take off more clothes.”

Her breath caught audibly in her throat, and a sense of pride swelled within him as she gripped the steering wheel tightly. “Jesus Christ, Ben.”

“Sorry.”

“But um… I should tell you I don’t mind the hickeys either. They, uh, they felt good.” Hers had felt good, too. If he closed his eyes, he could feel her lips on his neck, her cunt against his--“So yes, be more careful next time, but… I don’t mind them.”

He shifted in his seat, wondering if he would survive this day or any of the others they’d be spending together, then he nodded. “That’s fair,” he replied, and he heard her giggle as the light turned green again, and she drove them the rest of the way to work. 

*

Rey went to makeup when they got there, but Ben headed straight for the set, working with just Poe and their stunt coordinator joined them to work on some things for a scene he and Gwen were going to have later. Eventually, the plastic swords came out, and together, he and Gwen engaged in a playful, practice battle as Phas and Kylo under their showrunner’s watchful eye. 

Before anything could begin, though, Poe laughed at him as he approached that morning. “Oh, Ben Solo, what the hell were  _ you _ up to last night?” he asked, ruffling his hair as he flushed sheepishly. “Your neck looks like it took a beating. 

“Shut up,” he muttered, trying to smile even though he felt the heat of embarrassment flooding his body. He’d been so cocky earlier when they’d left his apartment, but now that they were having to face the consequences of their actions… that attitude had abandoned him and made way for a realization of,  _ oh god, what have I done? _

Poe laughed at him as he patted his shoulder. “They must’ve been something else,” he said. “You’re blushing like a virgin schoolboy who’s just had his first kiss.”

Laughing nervously, he ran a hand through his hair and stepped back. “Can we work now? I have a scene to film with Rey in about an hour.” Glancing at Poe, he bowed his head. “You wrote it.”

His hands found the air, and Poe sighed as he stepped back. “Fair point, but… who was it? I didn’t know you were seeing anyone.”

_ I’m not, _ he wanted to reply, but he and Rey had made an agreement earlier to keep this as private as possible. He didn’t want to give away any details of what was happening on set to escape. Of course, that plan seemed to shoot itself right to hell as Gwen walked onto the set just as he was pulling his shirt up to cover his hickeys. “Ben’s seeing someone?” she asked, picking something off of her nose very delicately as she closed the door behind her, and made her way toward a nearby pillar. 

Glaring at Poe, Ben silently begged him not to say anything, and an awkwardly silent moment fell over the room. Luckily, at the end of it, he felt relieved when poe turned to Gwen, and laughed. “No, I misheard something he said, sorry,” he replied, then he gave Ben a look that suggested that they were going to have a talk later. 

_ Great,  _ that was something to look forward to. 

Gwen’s eyes wandered between them, and though she didn’t seem to believe Poe’s half-assed lie, she wasn’t a fool. Whatever they’d been talking about clearly wasn’t something Ben was comfortable discussing publicly, and since she, like Rey and Poe, was one of his best friends. If he wanted to talk about it, he knew she’d let him come out and say it to her. “Ah,” she replied, then she crossed her arms over her chest. “Should we rehearse then, it’s a lot of work and not a lot of time.”

“Please,” Ben begged, then he looked to Poe. “Call for places?”

“Ah, yeah.” He clapped his hands together, then cried, “Places!” and the scene began, the odd moment with his costar temporarily forgotten as he and Gwen began to work on fight choreography, and a bit of the everyday ease that came with being on set began to settle in. 

*

An hour later, when they finished rehearsal, Ben was getting ready to make his way over to the makeup trailer, when a shadow suddenly loomed over him, and he saw Gwen standing there looking down at him with a curious eyebrow quirked. “What’s going on with you?” she asked. 

“What do you mean?” 

“I can see the hickeys you’re trying to hide, and I noticed Rey happened to have a matching set when she came into makeup this morning. Whatever secret you’re trying to hide, you’re doing a piss poor job of it,” she said. “But I’m not gonna press you about it.”

Relief flooded his body immediately. “You’re not?”

“No, but I think you should talk to Rey,” she said, then she sat down beside him, biting her lip as she thought through what she wanted to say. “Rose and Paige saw the hickeys this morning and sort of grilled her about it, and she seemed a little spooked for lack of a better word. I distracted them, but…”

Ben nodded in understanding. “I should talk to her.”

“Yes, you should,” Gwen replied, then she patted his knee. “Well, I’ll see you later. I’m filming with Armitage today, but…”

“I look forward to fighting you, too, Gwen,” he told her, then she stood, waving to him as she told him goodbye, and walked off the set, leaving him to worry about Rey and what they were doing there. 

This whole thing had started because of Rey’s inexperience, and he’d sort of forgotten that when it came to handling the physical evidence of what was happening between them. She was so new to all of this, and he wasn’t exactly a Casanova himself, but he’d certainly been more adjusted to it than she was. He'd walked onto sets with hickeys before, but she hadn’t. She’d never had that problem, and they hadn’t planned out how this would go very well. He needed to get himself together and prevent something like what had happened that morning from happening again. 

He just hoped Rey wasn’t angry with him because of it.

*

Later that day, he walked out onto the temple set in full costume, a hand running through his hair as they looked on at the set, wandering over everyone in the room as they worked. A smile blossomed on his face as he took stock of how lucky he was. His true love was coming onto this set everyday, spending time with these people, and getting to play the greatest role ever written. 

Poe was an idiot, but not when it came to writing a show. Ben hadn’t been enthusiastic about every script he’d ever been handed as an actor, but the episodes his friend came out with on a weekly basis? He was consistently thrilled.

Eventually, his eyes landed on Rey, and he felt his heart race as he remembered those feelings he’d recently started developing for her. Of course, thinking of her and what was happening between them made him realize that he needed to talk to her about what had happened in the makeup trailer that morning, and as quickly as those emotions started rushing in, they melted away to allow him to focus on helping her and making her more comfortable. 

Taking a deep breath, he walked over, strolling up casually until he was able to rest a palm on an enormous, circular column that rose from floor to ceiling, and lean against it. “How’s it going?” he asked, and even he could tell his voice was sincere, he wasn’t just asking to make small talk. 

Looking stunned, she blinked at him a few times as she seemed to struggle to come up with an answer. “I-I’m fine.” 

“Sorry I couldn’t join you in makeup this morning, Poe wanted me to run through some stunts for later,” he told her, then he crossed his arms, leaning his entire right side against the column. “I talked to Gwen, though, a few minutes ago.”

“Oh?”

“I heard about Rose and Paige asking you about the…” He gestured to his neck. “I got the impression you were prodded a bit more than you would’ve liked.”

“It’s fine, I can handle it, I just… it was the first time I’ve ever had that problem.” And then she was blushing, quickly covering her face to try and hide it, but he caught it all the same. It was sweet, he thought, and he found the flush of color rather endearing. Somehow, he fell just a little deeper in that moment, and it started to become clear to him that he was approaching a point of no return. “I’m not used to it yet, is all.”

He managed a soft chuckle, hoping it didn’t come across as nervous as he felt in spite of those feelings. “Fair enough. Maybe we can work through practicing your reactions tonight,” he said, then he ran a hand awkwardly through his hair. “Especially because we’re about to spend half the day kissing. Figure we can take a break from…”

“That depends on how we’re feeling. If you’re up for it and I’m up for it, maybe we could—I don’t know—repeat last night?” A grin lit up his face, then he nodded, wanting her to know without any shadow of doubt that he was all in. Whatever she wanted to do, he’d do it. For her, he’d do anything, he was starting to realize. “Awesome, it’s a…” She didn’t want to say date. It wasn’t a date. It definitely wasn’t a date, but that was the phrase, wasn’t it?

“It’s a plan,” Ben finished for her, relieving her of the pressure of finishing that sentence. Before he could say anything else, more crew members began to make their presence known, and Poe walked into the room with the episode’s director, a stocky, bald man who simply went by his last name of Ackbar, and they knew that the time to begin filming had come. 

“Catch you later?” Rey asked, then he tossed her a wink before walking away, trying not to read too much into the shy smile she gave him out of the corner of his eye.

This was going to kill him, he was certain of it. He was slowly starting to fall for his best friend, and while she seemed flustered by every time he flirted with her, he couldn’t tell if she felt the same way, and that terrified him. If he had to spend the rest of their time together hiding it because she only saw him as a friend, he’d probably die a little inside, but he’d pull through. This was still new anyways, and there was still time for her feelings to change if they hadn’t already.

As he walked onto set, though, he just hoped it wouldn’t take that long. 

*

Hours later, Rey’s knuckles knocked on the door of his trailer, waking him up from the catnap he’d taken after getting all of his armor off. The day had worn on him a little, and he groaned as he woke up covered in a thin sheen of sweat, likely caused by the high temperatures at which he kept his trailer. Groaning, he got up, and walked over to the door, rubbing his eyes as he opened it, and muttered a very sleepy, “Hey.” Then he stepped out into the cool autumn air.

“Did you take a nap in your trailer again?” she asked him, biting her lip as if stifling laughter.

Closing his door behind him, he scratched the back of his head. “I might have.” And he could feel the sheepish look washing over his face as he walked down onto the ground with her. “Couch is comfy.”

Rey just rolled her eyes, then she twirled her car keys around on her finger. “So, I’m thinking as a matter of convenience, we head to your place, hang out there for a while, then I’ll head out when it starts getting late.” A frown appeared on his face, then, and he could feel the weight of it pulling everything down as he processed what she’d just said. That hadn’t been what he wanted to have happen at all. He wanted her to spend more nights at his place, he wanted her to feel more comfortable, and he wanted-- “What?”

“You’re more than welcome to stay the night, Rey,” he told her, talking with his hands as well as they made their way toward the parking lot. “You know that.”

She shook her head, laughing again as they walked. “I can’t keep pulling overnighters at your place. People will…” She gesticulated wildly just like he’d been doing, attempting to mimic people speaking as best she could. “They’ll talk.”

“They already do just because we drive each other to work all the time,” he pointed out, but then he bowed his head, acknowledging her request in silence. “But sure. Just drive home safe.”

“I live only a few blocks away, Ben.”

“Right.” He ran a hand through his hair again, then they walked to her car in silence as his hopes began to fall that she felt the same way about him. That kind of thing only happened in the movies, didn’t it? It only ever happened in fantasies and daydreams. Falling for his best friend and actually having it work out? 

What a laugh.

*

A little while later, they were in his living room again sitting side by side on the couch. At least, they were after Ben handed her a freshly brewed cup of coffee, which would hopefully provide her the energy she needed to drive home when this was all over. 

“Thanks,” she said, then she took a sip of her coffee. 

“You’ve driven me to work two days in a row.” He gave a shrug, then he leaned back into the couch, sighing as his whole body relaxed. “Least I could do.”

“Just drive me to work two days in a row, and we’ll call it even.”

“Fair enough.”

Ben shifted onto his side then, staring at her for a moment before he swallowed, trying not to let anything he wasn’t ready to confess slip free from his lips. It was hard, though, he was realizing, and only getting harder. Already he was seeing her differently. He’d always found her to be beautiful, but now she was something else he didn’t know how to describe. Had her eyes always had that many colors in them? 

_ Fuck,  _ he needed to focus. They hadn’t come there that night for him to just ogle her all eveningl. “So what—“ A nervous laugh escaped him. “What did you want to um… do tonight?”

She seemed to almost spit out her coffee. “ What? ”

Quick to correct himself, Ben struggled not to stutter as he spoke. “I just mean, the reason we started all this. We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to, but… you’re here, and—“

“I am,” she interrupted, then she sat back, and he could see a million thoughts passing behind her eyes as she thought over what to do. “Just give me a minute.” 

He could think of a million things, but he didn’t want to push her. She needed to have complete control always, and not have him being overbearing or pressuring her—and he didn’t think he was, but he needed to be sure everything was—

Rey’s face shifted, and suddenly he could see that she’d come up with an idea. “What?”

Looking down to the ground, she gave him a tiny hint of laughter. “Last night was fun, really fun,” she told him, her eyes avoiding his the entire time. “But the one thing that I regret, the one thing I probably wasn’t ready for to be quite honest, was… you never touched me.” Her breathing came a little faster, and though she hadn’t told him yet what she wanted him to do, he knew his pulse would be racing by the time she finished. “Your hands… your skin, it never…”

“What are you saying?” Already he wanted to say yes. He didn’t know what he was saying yes to, but the idea of putting his hands on her, of getting to touch Rey’s skin after she’d made him come in his pants the night before, was one that shook him to his very core.

“Can you—“ A nervous giggle tumbled from her lips. “Can you do that to me again—what you did last night—but um, use your fingers? I’ve heard… I’ve heard it’s, um, nice.”

He blinked a few times, then he caught on. “You want me to fuck you with my fingers?” He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but he hadn’t been prepared for her to basically offer him the universe, everything he’d been praying for, with just three words. “Rey…”

“Only if you want to,” she reminded him. “But I don’t know, I feel like—I feel like that’d be a good next step in…” She gestured between them. “Gaining more experience.” 

A shiver passed through him, and his lower lip quivered before he gave her a nod. “Okay.” He was barely whispering, his voice was so quiet even he could hardly hear it, and he wasn’t sure he’d spoken until she replied. 

“Okay?” she asked, moving just a little closer to him, shifting along the couch until her thighs were brushing up against his. 

As if of its own accord one of his hands came up to caress her cheek, stopping her in her movements but not pushing her away, then he leaned in, providing his final yes as he slowly brought his lips to hers. 

It was the second time he’d kissed her as himself and not Kylo, and already, he was dizzy and drunk on it as her fingers came up to weave in his hair, tangling themselves in the raven waves as his other arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her onto his lap. When he finally freed her lower half from her clothing, he wanted her to ride his fingers, he wanted to watch as she slowly came apart on top of him, and it was a thoroughly debauched desire, but he still held it nonetheless. 

Even if Rey was never going to love him, he wanted to give her everything he could--every piece of himself that he could give.

His kisses grew deeper, more intimate, almost as if he were trying to tell her how much he loved her as the time went on. Was it obvious? Could she tell with every brush of his lips against hers just how strongly he was falling for her? As the arm around her waist lifted her further, did she know he couldn’t stop thinking about how good her lips felt against his? Did she feel it when she parted her legs as he set her down, letting them rest on either side of his so that she was straddling him? 

Like the night before, he could feel the apex of her thighs against his erection. That night, they’d been kissing just like this, as if just kissing was an act more intimate than sex. Only this time she was on top of him instead of him being on top of her. 

He loved it, having her on top of him, her hands gripping his hair as she began to rock her hips gently against his erection. It was, however, torturous all the same. He wasn’t going to come just then, and so he held himself back as she kissed him, giving him a high that coursed through his veins better than any drug ever created by man. 

A moan escaped him as the friction grew sweeter, and he knew he had to act soon, had to start giving her what she wanted before he got lost in chasing his own orgasm. One of Ben’s hands reached down, leaving her cheek to brush over the swell of her breasts, fingertips ghosting over her t-shirt as he made his way toward her jeans. He prayed he wasn’t shaking as he took the button of them between his index finger and his thumb, and pushed it through the little slit in the fabric. Suddenly feeling as if he was a bit too nervous to remain stable against her lips, her kisses abandoned them, moving down to her neck as he then reached for the fly, the tiny golden zipper coming undone in one fell swoop before his hands both reached for the waistband of her jeans, and began to pull them down a little. 

She seemed to freeze a bit on top of him then, and he paused, looking up at her as he realized that maybe they needed to slow down. This might’ve been too fast for her, and he began to worry he’d pushed her too far. “Do you want me to stop?”

“What?” she asked, seeming almost a bit dazed. In fact, she looked how he felt, a little shell-shocked and dizzy from being throughly kissed. That was a good sign, right? “N-no! Don’t-Don’t stop.” She leaned forward, pulling him into a searing, but brief kiss before she backed away, looking into his eyes with a significant amount of courage. “Don’t you stop until I tell you to.”

Nodding, he leaned back, watching as she backed away, nearly pulling off of him completely as she yanked off her shoes and socks, then she reached for the waistband of her jeans. Closing her eyes, she pulled them down, opting to leave her underwear on, which he understood--she probably wasn’t ready for him to see everything yet. 

Wanting her to know he was perfectly fine with that, he gave her a tiny hint of a smile as she kicked the denim aside, and resumed straddling his hips. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into an embrace as he held her close. “Is this okay?”

She nodded, reaching up a hand as if to stroke his hair as she leaned in closer, but her hands just became tangled in his hair again. “It’s perfect,” she whispered, then she was kissing him again, and her hips rocked against his anew. 

The hands at her back shifted back down to her hips, taking everything slowly out of a possibly misguided fear that he was moving too fast as they glided over the newly bared skin of her upper thighs, but the way she was kissing him made him slowly start to realize that was probably a mistake. Rey’s kisses were becoming increasingly frenzied, hurried, and needy like she was begging him through touch to give her  _ more.  _

He was more than happy to oblige, feeling her gasp into the kiss as his fingers began to skim along the inside of her thigh, her body seizing above his as she realized what he was doing.

That sudden, sharp intake of oxygen caused Ben to grin against her lips before he moved his kisses down, pressing feather-light touches to the column of her throat. Rey’s breathing staggered as his fingers got closer and closer to where she wanted them most--to where they both wanted them most. He wanted to be inside of her so badly it would probably kill him if they were interrupted just then. Luckily, he had no plans for visitors. No one would have a reason to knock on his door that night.

It would just be the two of them, and he was rather excited about that. 

Just before they reached the apex of her thighs, his fingers lingered, hovering just out of reach. He could feel the heat of her against the tips of his fingers, could feel how wet she was just from where he was on the perimeter of her cunt, but he wasn’t going to touch her, not yet. Not until she ordered him to “Ben.” 

There was the order, the command to go onward, and with a twitch of the corner of his mouth his fingers brushed up against her clit through her underwear, and she sighed delightedly as he began to create sweet, sweet friction. 

Even through that thin layer of fabric, it felt incredible, and he’d only just started to rub her fucking clit. He wasn’t sure if he was going to survive this encounter, if he was going to make it through the wilderness to the daylight beyond, but if this was how he died, it was one hell of a way to go.

After about a minute, his fingers moved on from simply stroking her clit, shifting smoothly down to her entrance, and he gasped softly as he felt her through the fabric. “ Christ, you’re wet, Rey,” he breathed, unable to stop himself as his finger pressed a little harder against her. “So fucking wet.” He’d done that to her, he’d made her like this, and he was about to make it worse—or since she was clearly enjoying it, was it better?

He pulled away from her neck to look at her, studying her face carefully as his fingers reached for the edge of the fabric. She seemed calmer then as he brushed the cotton aside, and his fingers pressed against her entrance, her entire demeanor relaxed and happy, ready to take him. When his first finger slipped inside of her, she closed her eyes against the feeling, her lower lip trembling, but she made no sound. He pressed it a little further inside of her, and she held onto him a little more tightly, breathing in as he continued pushing it in all the way to the second knuckle, holding it there for a split second to evaluate how she was feeling. 

It was just one finger, but he wanted to give her time to adjust. Rey, however, seemed to want to continue her streak of  _ go, go, go _ , and he caught another eager, excited look on her face as her eyes remained closed, her head tilted toward the ceiling. When she opened her eyes and looked down at him again, he knew for sure that this was what she wanted, and he began to move that finger, pumping it slowly in and out of her as his thumb came up to rub her clit, and she gasped above him. 

Soft moans escaped her lips, but those were quickly silenced by his lips finding hers again, and the searing intensity of his next kiss sent them both into a frenzy. 

Suddenly, Ben understood that it was highly likely and possible for him to come untouched. 

His finger fucked her a little harder and faster, wanting to focus on making her come rather than finding pleasure in this himself, so he deepened his kiss, pressing another finger inside of her as he moaned. A quiet swear left her seconds later, and he realized that like him, she was getting off on the idea of him getting off. 

How he’d gotten lucky enough to get this close to someone like her, he didn’t know, but he was going to thank the stars every night from then on for how fortunate a turn his life had taken. 

He whispered her name in wonder as those fingers moved a little faster, curling inside of her as he broke that kiss, then dove back in, hungry for more of her, as much as she would give as he kissed her with abandon, not caring for the world beyond this tiny little space they were sharing. Not even the rest of his apartment mattered to him now when she was in his arms, riding his index and middle finger like it was her lifeline. 

Rey’s movements slowly grew less controlled, less focused, and he started to wonder what it was going to feel like when she finally came around his fingers. Any minute now she was going to come, he was sure of it, and as tiny little moans, soft little whimpers left her mouth, he pulled away from her again, his eyes hooded but still attentive. He wanted to see this, see what she would look like when she came, watch her face as she fell apart. No, he  _ needed _ to bear witness to this, to see her face in a way he hadn’t been able to the night before. 

“Do it,” he whispered, as if they were playing a game of truth or dare. Maybe they were, but neither of them was aware of it yet. “ Do it.”

His voice was lower the second time he said it, and that sent her over the edge, causing her to come on his fingers with a shaky gasp, and a whisper that sounded vaguely like his name. Her eyes shut and so did his, the feeling of her fluttering around him forcing him to whisper things to her that bordered on obscene even for sex. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…” she breathed, and he found himself almost laughing since he was thinking the exact same thing. This was incredible, this was what living was for, and he felt like he’d found the answer to a question he hadn’t been aware of asking.

He was gone already, the point of no return had been passed, and nothing was ever going to be the same again. 

Several seconds went by where both of them were just panting, breathing impossibly hard as she came down from her high, and both of their eyes finally blinked open, though he wasn’t sure who’d opened them first. Even he could feel the intensity of the look in his eyes the way it was reflected in hers. He felt victorious, mischievous, and somehow, still hungry, feeling as if somehow he’d been the one who’d gotten fucked. At least on an emotional level, maybe he had.

The hand that was still on her back drifted up to her waist, holding her still as he removed his fingers, earning him one last moan from her before she fell quiet again as he brought them to his lips. He could feel her pulse racing beneath his palm as he satisfied a curiosity he’d had from the moment he’d touched her, bringing those fingers into his mouth, his cheeks hollowing as he sucked them clean, groaning softly as he did so. 

“Why—why’d you do that?” she asked breathlessly. 

“Wanted to,” he replied, struggling to keep his voice casual as he stared at her, still smirking like he was the devil as his hand rested on her hip. “You okay?”

She nodded. “I feel—I feel great… I… thank you.”

A small hum that sounded vaguely like a laugh left him, then he leaned back against the couch, pride swelling from somewhere deep inside of him at the flushed, debauched appearance she carried. He’d done that to her, him and no one else, and it struck a chord with something in him that made him want to live and breathe this every day. “I bet you do.” 

She scoffed, and her eyes drifted down to his lips once more as she then rolled off of him so she was sitting by his side on the couch. “You’re a dickhead.”

He laughed openly, his whole body shaking as he turned to look at her. “Maybe so,” he said, then he pushed himself to his feet, and gestured to the kitchen. “You want anything?”

“I need to get going home,” she reminded him. “I don’t exactly live here, remember?” 

Disappointment filled him as he remembered that she wasn’t supposed to be staying the night. Since his feelings were no longer platonic, he couldn’t deny anymore that he wanted her to very badly. He wanted her to be by his side, to wake up next to him in the morning, and  _ fuck,  _ he was so gone. “Yeah, but I bought too much taco meat the day before yesterday, and I don’t want it to go bad.”

A smile blossomed on her face, and he realized he’d just earned himself a little more time with her. “Sure.”

Returning the smile, he watched as she rolled her eyes as he walked into the kitchen, leaving her still half-melted on his couch. The image of her was burned into his eyes, nearly making him walk into the wall as he made his way into his kitchen, and began his search for the taco meat, struggling not to steal one last glimpse as those feelings reared their head once again. 

This was just an arrangement, just until the end of the scene, and he knew already he didn’t want it to end. Nothing had ever been so carefree and fun, and surprisingly, it wasn’t even awkward. Maybe it was just the fact that they were actually friends and not putting any further attachment to it yet--at least, not out loud--but maybe… maybe it was something  _ more. _

He hoped it was something more, because if he had to end things after this, and never touch her or hold her like that again, he wasn’t sure he’d survive.


	3. Indebted

The next few days allowed it to grow more and more intense. Just the day after, they were practicing a scene in his trailer, and it had been the most platonic, casual scene they’d ever rehearsed--one between Kylo and Phasma, not even him and Rey--but at the end, she’d started giving him one of those looks, just like the one she’d given him just before she suggested they start fooling around. 

Before he could think, before he could  _ breathe _ , he was kissing her, smiling as he did so from the light teasing they’d been engaged in prior to the kiss, his body leaning into hers as they began melting into one another on his couch. One of his hands came up to caress the base of her skull as the other wrapped around her waist, pulling her into his lap as they kissed. 

Just like the day before, Rey’s legs parted, straddling either side of his so that she was riding his lap, kissing him fiercely as she stood up on her knees and towered over him. His head tilted back as she deepened the kiss, his hands adjusting their grip to help keep her balanced as hers began to drift down his chest, palms ghosting over the thick fabric of his doublet-- 

_ Oh god, _ they were fooling around in costume. Poe was going to probably murder them for this, but if he stopped kissing her now, he was pretty certain his mood would sour for the remainder of the day and never recover. Kissing her felt remarkable, like he’d found the holy grail, and thoughts like that were surely a sign that he was only spiraling further beyond the point of no return, but at this point, there was no use denying it. 

He’d passed the event horizon of the black hole that was falling for someone, and it would take something extreme, something  _ cosmic _ to pull him back now. 

Ben moaned softly as her hands finally lowered enough to ghost over the button of the trousers they’d put him in for the day, and she laughed against his lips as those same fingers then found his clothed erection. Both of them shuddered as her hands finally found it, but neither froze. In fact, she began to move, palming him through his clothes instead. 

A shiver passed through him, and he felt her give a tiny smile against his lips as her hand continued moving against his cock until another tiny little noise left his mouth, and he pulled away from the kiss to stare at her. Disbelief filled him as she reached for the waistband of his trousers, then she began to slip them down just enough so that her hand could reach inside. 

Before she proceeded any further, she locked eyes with him one last time, asking him a question without saying a word. Consent had been the most important thing they’d been stressing in their adventures thus far, and this time was no different. All he could give her in response, though, was a tiny, shaky breath that suggested that he was, in fact, down to do whatever she wanted. Right now, he suspected that she just wanted to stroke him to completion the way he’d done to her last night, but there was only so much a stare could communicate. 

If he started to suspect that she wanted to take things any further, he would ask her, for now, he was going to enjoy the feeling of Rey’s hand reaching into his trousers, freeing his cock to the air. 

A sense of pride soon filled him as her eyes wandered down, taking sight of him as her breath hitched ever so slightly, and a full body shiver passed through her. He’d never been one to brag about his size, but seeing Rey’s reaction to it? 

He was only human. 

When she took his cock into her hand, he forgot how to breathe almost instantly as she stroked him. It was kind of awkward, and she was most definitely inexperienced, but it had been a while since anyone else had touched him like this, and he supposed those new feelings he had for her amplified things a little. 

His breathing was ragged, but she still moved her hand faster over him as she suddenly met his eyes. “Am I doing this right?”

“You’re—you’re perfect,” he breathed, and  _ shit _ he hadn’t meant to say that. That had been a slip, a mistake, and  _ fuck, _ surely that would make it obvious that he felt something for her, wouldn’t it? Thinking quickly, he struggled to correct himself. “God, Rey, don’t stop.”

His entire body felt like it was on fire, like he was slowly falling apart but in the most beautiful way possible. He never wanted this to end. If he’d thought that perfection had been achieved by grinding her into her couch the other night, he’d been sorely mistaken. Perfection was the feeling of Rey’s hands on his bare skin, her soft fingers stroking him slowly, steadily to completion, was--

Before he could finish that thought, they were brutally, cruelly interrupted by a knock at the door. Her hand quickly let go of his cock, and Ben groaned softly—which probably didn’t help the situation—as she moved away, freeing herself from his lap as fast as she was able to as he hurriedly reached for the waistband of his trousers. 

The door opened just as he finished pulling his trousers back up just as Gwen stepped through it with a knowing look on her face. “Solo, they’re calling for us,” she asked, stepping further into the trailer as she picked up the tails of her coat. “Better get out here before Poe comes in.”

Ben stood up as nonchalantly as he could manage, then he glanced over at Rey to see she’d gone a little paler than usual. A sympathetic pang filled him as he looked at Gwen, who seemed as if she’d just gotten confirmation of something she’d suspected of happening and looked rather smug about it. Glaring at her, he warned her not to say anything, but it seemed the message was missed somehow. 

Their co-star was the first to break the silence. “Wow,” she said as she crossed her arms over her chest. 

“Gwen, I told you, it’s not what it looks li—” Ben started, but then she held up a hand, cutting him off with a roll of her eyes as well. 

“I don’t care. I literally do not give a damn what it is, but you do realize you’re doing a terrible job of keeping it hidden, right?” She walked further into the room, and gestured to Rey’s neck, where the two day old hickeys were now hidden beneath foundation. “Yesterday she walks into makeup with these on display, and now I catch you in her trailer and you just finished putting your pants on, I can tell from how you forgot to redo your belt.”

Ben looked down at his undone belt, and she watched his cheeks flush pink before he rectified his error. “Sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing to me?” Gwen asked, sounding thoroughly baffled. “I don’t care what you’re doing. You’re both single, you’re young, and you spend a lot of time together. Shit happens. I don’t care. I’m just noticing that you seem to have a desire to keep it secret, and letting you know you need to try harder if that’s the way this is going.” 

The two of them looked at each other, both half-frozen for a second before he eventually nodded. “Yeah, we are, this just… happened so fast.”

“Yeah.” Rey scratched the back of her head awkwardly as she watched Ben cross the room, and examine himself in the mirror, beginning the process of fixing his appearance as she spoke. “What do you think we should do?”

“Put up a do not disturb sign, put your hickeys beneath clothing, and don’t have sex on set.” A rush of heat flooded Ben’s cheeks as he redid his belt, then adjusted his clothing and blended Rey’s smudged lipstick into his lips so that it looked as if their makeup artist had put it there. “Just an idea.”

A tiny snort escaped Ben as a snarky comment popped into his mind, the thought freeing itself from his lips before he could stop it. “We’ll do the first two, but I can’t make any promises about the last one, Gwen.”

Rey didn’t seem to find it as funny as he did. “ Ben!”

He glanced in her direction, then, and the second he noticed she was uncomfortable, he looked to the ground sheepishly, and crossed the room to stand in front of her, only just resisting the urge to put his hand on her face, and lean down to kiss her forehead. He couldn’t do that. He wasn’t her boyfriend. 

_ Not yet, _ a tiny, hopeful voice whispered in his head. He ignored the voice. “Sorry, I was mostly joking.”

“I hate you.”

“I know.”

In the background, Gwen leaned back against the trailer wall, watching them as they talked, teasing each other. “Just don’t fuck on any set pieces that belong to me.”

Rey nodded. “Yeah, that, too,” she replied, then Ben found himself smiling as he looked at her, watching her confidence slowly wander back in. “So you won’t say anything?”

“I didn’t see anything, I was never here,” Gwen confirmed, then she pushed off the wall, and made her way toward the door again. “That said, Solo, we’ve got a scene to film.”

“Yeah, yeah we do,” Ben replied, then he briefly placed his hand on Rey’s arm, and walked over to the door with her. “See you later?”

A warm smile was tossed his way. “Not if I see you first.”

The smile he gave her in return was involuntary, and he feared for a moment that the feelings he had for her became obvious. He could feel the crinkles by his eyes form, his dimples prominent as he looked at her, and he was so gone, always terrible at keeping a poker face, but if he turned away fast enough, maybe she wouldn’t notice. 

Without another word, he turned away from her, and followed Gwen out onto the set, heading back toward the hallway that they’d rehearsed in the day before. Sighing, he ran a hand through his hair, well aware that he was probably messing it up from the well-coiffed waves Paige had set it in that morning, but he didn’t care. He was in a fucking crisis, and the crisis was realizing he was in love with his best friend, and he didn’t know how to hide his feelings from her. 

“I saw that,” Gwen said as they walked. 

“Saw what?”

“The way you looked at her.” Laughter fell from her lips, her arm finding its way around Ben’s shoulders as she slapped a palm casually against his chest. “It’s different from the way you used to do it. She used to just make you laugh, now… I don’t even know how to describe it.”

Looking down at the ground, Ben felt a tiny ping of embarrassment rush through him. “That obvious, huh?”

“Just a little obvious.” Then she paused, looking at him for a moment as if trying to gauge his thoughts. She was good at that, he realized. Something about his co-star seemed to allow her to read his mind at times, and this? This was one of those times. “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?” 

He fell silent, biting his lip as he tasted hints of the lipstick Rey had been wearing. Vague hints of vanilla filled his taste buds as he tried to think of what to say, then Gwen put her arm down, and placed her hand on his arm instead. Feeling sheepish, he allowed his eyes to meet hers, trying to summon forth the courage to speak, but finding it had suddenly abandoned him. 

“Hey, I’m not judging, I think it’s cute,” Gwen admitted, then she released him entirely, and they kept walking. “Honestly I think some of us have been waiting for it to happen. Ever since your first kissing scene you’ve gotten closer, and I think some of the cast finds it suspicious.”

He scoffed at that. “It’s none of their business.”

“No, of course not.” She shook her head as they approached the set, stopping just outside the door. “I’m just saying, you have our support, and you can talk to me if you need to. It’s scary, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“Falling in love with your best friend?” Gwen puts her hand on the doorknob, then she swallows. “Someone you’ve already known is going to be in your life for as long as you can help it and now you suddenly see something else? It’s terrifying. It’s also adorable.”

“It’s not adorable,” Ben muttered as she pushed the door open, and they walked inside. “I just don’t know what to do. What if she doesn’t feel the same way? I don’t even know if it’s lo--”

The woman walking beside him cocked her head to the side and raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “You sure about that?”

“I’m…” He smiled a little more bittersweetly this time. “I think I might be. I’m not far from it. Just… this is the first time I’ve fallen in love with anyone since Tai, and the only reason I know what this is, is because I’ve seen the signs before. Rey doesn’t know. She told me.”

“Okay, cowboy, calm down before we face Poe, he’s a good guy, but he’s shit at keeping secrets,” she said, then she looked around the set, relieved that the only people there were the cameramen and makeup crew. “Talk quietly.”

“I think I might be done with this conversation for now, Gwen, I need to think about this on my own. I’ll tell her eventually, but I want to figure out whether there’s a chance she feels the same way first.”

“That sounds fair.” Before she could say anything else, they watched as Poe walked out onto the set, waving to a crew member as he was greeted upon entry. “Good luck, Ben.”

“Yeah, you too,” he replied, then they took their places on set, and began the day’s work. 

*

The scene went about as okay as it could’ve gone, but he spent the entire time that they were filming distracted as all hell. He couldn’t help thinking of the things they’d been talking about the entire time, of the situation he was in with Rey. In a way, he supposed it matched the scene he’d just done with Gwen, but he still felt off about it. 

On the way home from set that day, his best friend was unusually quiet. He tried to fill the silence by venting to her about the scene--omitting, of course, the feelings he had for her--but something still didn’t feel quite right. Eventually, he settled on talking about the one thing they both had been dreading and yet eagerly anticipating. The meeting with the choreographer. 

“So we’re meeting with that choreographer in two days,” he said, sparing her a worried glance as she finally managed to nod and say something. 

“Yeah. Think it’ll be the same one who worked on our first kiss?” 

A smile blossomed on his face as he conjured to mind the first time he’d ever been given the opportunity to kiss Rey. Well, the first time Kylo got to kiss Kira. There had been no cameras, no crowds, just him, her, and Amilyn Holdo, their choreographer. The atmosphere in that room had been electric, filling him with this sense of urgency he hadn’t even known he was capable of feeling. That had technically been their first kiss, but he hadn’t realized until he’d kissed her out of character just how much he enjoyed the feeling of her lips on his. “Amilyn? I hope so. She makes everything feel less awkward than it actually is, but… now I can’t wear that fucking dick sock without thinking of those little sock monkeys.”

Beside him, Rey began to fucking  _ chortle _ . “Without thinking about what?”

“Yeah, when I had to film that scene with Gwen she told me about how an actor once used a sock monkey puppet instead of the ones they usually hand you and… filmed the scene like that. It loosened us up, but I think it’s about half the reason neither of us could stop laughing the entire time.”

More laughter fell from her lips as she hunched over, staring at him in shock and disbelief. At least, that’s what he assumed it was. He had to keep his eyes on the road, after all. “Are you fucking serious?”

“Deadly. I’ve thought about it during every sex scene since.” He turned onto her street, then slowed the car down as they came upon her parking lot. “It’s made acting turned on a bit more of a challenge, but I’ve always thought it’s important to laugh with your partner during sex. Makes everything more fun.”

She hummed her assent. “Yeah,” she replied, then they fell quiet again as he drove into their parking lot , and he soon pulled into a space, then looked at her expectantly, waiting for her usual goodbye or some sort of sign that she was going to leave. 

When she gave him neither of those, his brows furrowed. Shit, had something gone wrong? “Are you okay?”

“I keep thinking about how we were interrupted earlier.” She brushed a strand of her hair behind her ear, swallowing as she spoke. “I don’t know about you, but I was… I was having quite a bit of fun before Gwen walked in.”

“I was, too.”

“I know this could technically wait till later, but…” With a sharp intake of breath, Rey closed her eyes, and seemed to summon forth the courage to finish her sentence. “Could we pick up where we left off?”

“I-inside?” Ben asked, unsure if he’d survive Rey putting his hands on him in his car. If she did, he’d probably be pavloved into getting a boner every time he got behind the wheel. That would just be fucking miserable. 

Luckily, that wasn’t what she had in mind at all. “Or in here, but if we do it in here I can’t quite sit on you like I was earlier,” she pointed out, her cheeks flushing pink as she looked away from him. “I kind of liked it like that.”

He let out a slow, shaky breath. “Jesus, Rey.” His cock was hard now, impossibly so, and it was taking all of his strength not to come in his pants untouched, to even speak in the first place. Relief flooded him as he glanced her way, then cocked his head in the direction of the apartments. “Inside?”

“I thought you’d never ask.” Without another word, she hopped out of the car, and he huried to shut off the engine as he then followed suit, his car door slamming shut soon after. Together, they walked around to the back of his van, and made their way into her building, and he tried to fight back shivers as he felt her hand slip into his, and it continued to hold him even as they walked into the elevator, and made their way up to her apartment. 

Friends held hands, right? That was a thing they did? His blood began to heat beneath his skin, his entire body feeling hot as he looked down at their joined hands. Their fingers weren’t laced, but their palms were pressed flat against one another, and he could feel her pulse racing against his hand as they rode silently up to her floor.

The second the elevator doors opened, she tugged on Ben’s hand, pulling him out into the hallway as he stumbled with a series of curses that had her throwing her head back to laugh as they ran. At least someone was laughing, he was just trying to focus on not breaking himself. If he injured himself and wasn’t able to touch her again after, he would probably die, if he was being honest. In spite of that, though, he still managed to find the encounter fun, freeing, and surprisingly sweet. 

Ben was having the time of his life, and they weren’t even in an actual relationship. 

The instant she and Ben walked through the door of her apartment, she didn’t even wait until the door was shut before she pinned him to a wall and kissed him fiercely, knocking the wind out of both of them as her hands came up to grip his hair in fists. 

A soft whimper escaped him into her mouth as her hands slowly drifted down the expanse of his chest. It was explorative, as if she was admiring everything that lay beneath the fabric of his shirt, and if that was what she was doing, he wondered why. Did it mean what he hoped it meant? Or was he just hopeful because it was what he’d started to pray for?

Her hands finally found the button of his jeans, undoing them as she brought her kisses down onto his neck, and swept aside the neckline of his shirt so she could leave a mark there in his skin, beneath where any makeup artist or nosey set-goer could notice. Another soft little moan left his lips, and she undid his zipper, allowing him to feel the way she smiled against his skin before slipping his shirt a little further down his shoulder, and leaving yet another mark. 

“Yes,” Ben whispered, unable to make much noise as he tipped his head back, his body singing as she pulled back from his neck ever so slightly. “God, yes.”

A tiny giggle escaped her as she lowered the fabric at his hips just enough to free his cock from its confines. The second the cool air hit his skin, Ben shivered in her arms, and pulled her close against him. They were so close he could feel his erection pressing into her stomach, and not a second later she backed away. At first he was worried it was because she was afraid, but then she grasped his cock in her hand, and stroked him just like she had earlier, except, this time he was pressed against a wall, and they were both standing up. 

His breathing became shaky as low noises began to fall from his mouth involuntarily, pure pleasure shooting through his whole body as Rey’s fingers stroked him as if doing so was what she lived for. Not wanting to be outdone, he leaned down, whispering quietly to her at a volume he prayed her neighbors wouldn’t hear. “The tip, Rey,” he whispered. “Swipe your thumb over the ti-- _ yes,  _ yes, just like that,  _ fuck… _ ”

“Ben…”

“You’re doing so good, Rey, so good.” Pressing a kiss to her temple, Ben grasped tightly at the fabric of her shirt, holding her close against him as she did just that, her thumb gliding over his tip as they both gasped against one another. “Yes,  _ yes, _ go faster, Rey.”

A small whine escaped her, then she moved her hand a little more quickly, her breathing coming at an uneven pace as if  _ she  _ were the one coming undone instead of him, and the way that made him feel defied words. 

“Fuck, I’m so fucking hard right now, you’re killing me,” he whispered, and she snickered against his neck as she placed a kiss there. Her thumb then swiped over his tip again, and he swore violently as it nearly pushed him over the edge, his hands falling down to her waist as she kissed him again, stealing what little oxygen was left in his lungs. 

As she repeated the motion, she smiled against his lips, seeming delighted to notice precome had started to gather there. She broke their kiss to press them along the line of his jaw, freeing his lips to confess everything he wanted her to do as his body hummed with adrenaline, a rush flooding his senses as she stroked him closer and closer to completion.

“Faster,” he whispered, then she hummed as his lower lip quivered in response to her obeying his command. “Yes, that’s it… Fuck, Rey, that’s so go--” He was cut off by a sharp gasp as his lungs fought for oxygen, then he wrapped one arm fully around her waist, and leaned back further against the wall, finding that he was no longer capable of standing on his own. 

He was at the edge, on the cusp of falling over it, so close he wondered if it was possible to come back now, and his cock--fuck, it was aimed right at her shirt. There was no way he could come on her shirt. Everything between them was still so new, so fresh, and if he came on her shirt… what if she never spoke to him again?

“Rey, I’m gonna come,” he told her, his voice low and shaky, his mind barely able to find the words to say as she brought him closer and closer to the edge. “I don’t want to come on your shirt.”

“I don’t care, I’m doing laundry tonight,” she protested, then he groaned again, unable to believe that this was happening. He didn’t deserve this woman. He didn’t deserve her as a friend, a lover, or whatever she could be to him. He simply didn’t deserve her. “Just come.”

With another shaky inhale, Ben’s fingers dug into her waist, and his head fell back against her wall as he came, his come spilling onto her shirt just as he’d predicted. Rey, continuing to prove herself worthy of sainthood, continued to stroke him as he came, falling apart in her arms as the wall behind him became the only thing keeping him on his feet.

They should’ve done this on the couch, but as he came down from his high, he found that he wouldn’t have had it any other way. 

In the aftermath, they were both breathing impossibly hard. He felt impossibly sex drunk and dizzy, and as he looked down at her, he thought about telling her then and there how she made him feel, but words escaped him and fear began slowly creeping back into his body. Then she pressed her forehead against his, leaning forward as thoughts that made sense finally crept their way back into his head. 

“Are you…” He swallowed. “Are you sure you’ve never done any of this before?”

“I’m sure.”

“This isn’t just some elaborate excuse to get into my pants?” he asked, and she snorted her laughter as she stepped away from him. 

“No, it’s not just some elaborate excuse to get into your pants, I promise,” she replied, then he watched as she frowned while he pulled his pants up, hiding his softening cock from view. “I just… I don’t know, I seem to be good at figuring out what you like rather quickly.”

This time, he was the one who was blushing as he finished buttoning his pants, then he ran his hand through his hair, pulling it out of his face. “Yeah, you do.” His voice was a soft little mumble that seemed to make her tremble a little as she stepped forward, forcing her to crane her neck to look at him as he got too close. “Can I return the favor?”

She cocked her head in surprise. “Wasn’t that what I just did for you?” 

“Maybe I like being in your debt.” He stepped closer again, wanting nothing more than to be indebted to her all over again. “So what do you say? Do you want me to turn around and leave for the night, see you on set tomorrow morning…” This time, he leaned down, whispering lowly in her ear. “Or do you want me to stay?”

She seemed to study him for a moment, her body leaning into his already as he shifted ever so slightly closer to her. For a second, neither of them moved, the tension growing heavy in the air, then, with a tiny hint of a smile breaking out on her lips, Rey took his face in her hands, and pulled him into a kiss. 

Shock caused him to jolt a little at first, but then he softened, melting into the kiss as his arms wrapped around her waist, and he returned it, his mind spinning as he gripped her tightly, lifting her up from the ground as he then whirled them around, and sank them down onto his living room couch to work on repaying his debt. 

He landed gently on top of her, his hands catching them both as they kissed fiercely, each brush of his lips against hers more heated than the last. “Rey,” he breathed, pulling back from the kiss to look at her kiss swollen lips, to see the flush in her cheeks that he’d been responsible for creating. “You’re incredible.” 

It was quiet, what he’d said, and maybe it was a little too much, but the half-lidded gaze she gave him in response nearly had him coming apart again as she took him in, saying nothing, but everything at the same time with her eyes. One of her hands came up to caress his cheek, her breathing slowly evening out as he leaned down, his forehead pressed against hers. “What are you going to do?” she asked, taking in another deep breath. “What are you going to do to me?”

“It’s not what I’m going to do  _ to _ you.” Pulling away from her forehead, he leaned down and began peppering featherlight kisses along her neck, positioning himself perfectly so that by the time he spoke again, his deep voice rumbled right over her pulse. “It’s what I’m going to do  _ for _ you, Rey.” 

“Fuck…”

“So what can I do for you, Rey?” he asked, his lips at her collarbone now as he looked up at her, watching with eager eyes as she thought over his question, taking several precious seconds during which he let his sweep over her, taking stock of her debauched appearance. They’d really done a number on each other, hadn’t they?

Eventually, he felt her tremble beneath him, and he crawled over her again, bracing himself on his arms as he took her wrists in his hands, and pressed them gently into the sofa. “What can I do for you, Rey?” he repeated. 

Another shiver, then she bit her lip, dragging it between her teeth as his hands slipped up from her wrists to grasp hers, both of them folding their fingers over each other in tandem. “Put your hands on me, Ben.”

Grinning, he leaned down, and briefly kissed her again. “I can do that.” Then he kissed her again, her head tilting back to allow him better access as he deepened the kiss, his tongue sweeping into her mouth as they melted into the couch, and Ben set to work on making her fall apart on her own couch for the first time.


	4. Wild Thoughts

They did their first read-through of the scene one night in her trailer just before they left work for the day. They were sitting on her couch, legs crossed facing one another as they held their scripts in their hands, and repeated the lines until they felt like they knew them. By the time they had it memorized, Ben felt confident enough to set the scene, and they stood on opposite sides of the trailer, waiting for her signal that she was ready to begin.

She gave it, and he could feel the tension in the room rocket up to an alltime high.

This was just a rehearsal, this wasn’t even witnessed by anyone but them, and yet they were both treating it like it was their chance to win an Oscar. The dialogue was at its best, as if they meant every word of what they were saying, every second of this secret, torrid love affair. 

Then they got to the kiss, the one that would lead Kylo and Kira to sink to the temple floor, and consummate their relationship. His mind stopped working at that point, his hand falling to her chest to ground himself with the beat of her heart, using that warm pulse to tether himself to reality as he kissed her, and for a brief half-second, they both lost character and it was just them. It was Ben and Rey kissing, and it felt almost like a dream, like something that transcended reality in a way different from when they were just acting. 

It was beautiful, and it was fleeting. Just seconds later, they pulled apart, both panting hard as they recalled the stage directions. Said directions called for them to start removing clothes, and they didn’t have their costumes or the exact choreography yet, and all that was left was a single line. 

Kylo looked down at her, his eyes full of adoration and love, then he leaned their foreheads together, an improvisation in the place of the actions they were supposed to be doing during this scene. If he looked at her, he knew he’d just kiss her again, and for that, he would have no excuse. “You’re still holding on,” he said, then the scene ended, and they stepped away from each other, both panting slightly as they stared at one another in the aftermath. 

An awkward laugh escaped Rey as she ran a hand through her hair, her fingers brushing over her lips almost absentmindedly. He wondered if she even knew she’d done it, if she knew the impact it had on him. Probably not. “Damn,” she breathed. “I think you need to get me a cigarette.”

“You don’t smoke,” he replied with a chuckle, then he stepped back, leaning against the wall as his chest heaved with each breath. “But I know what you mean.”

“Three more days until we’re with the choreographer.” 

“Well, it’s just Amilyn,” Ben said, then he shrugged. “We’ll be okay, she’s sweet, good at what she does. I mean, she has to be or Poe wouldn’t hire her.”

“Yeah.” She laughed as she slumped back against the couch again. “I know, I’m just… I’m just nervous. I feel less nervous than I did at first, but… it’s one thing to be in private with you, and another to be… even in front of just Amilyn and maybe Poe.”

“We’ll work on it until we’re both comfortable, and hey…” He threw his hands up, and made his way toward her, sitting down on the couch at her side, only just resisting the urge to take her hand. “If you decide you’re not, then I’m out too, and we’ll just tell Poe to fade to black. You’re not required to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”

“No, I-I want to do it, cause… I want to experience all these things, I want to do it, and you? You’re helping me find the courage to do it, so--” She reached out between them, and took his hand, surprising him as she laced their fingers together, then smiled. “Thank you.”

A blush crept up his cheeks, but he didn’t pull away, instead, he gave her a nod, and sighed. “It’s um…” An awkward laugh escaped him. “It’s a lot of fun… doing this with you, so…”

Tension developed in the air between them, a slightly awkward sort that had them both looking down and away with tiny smiles on their faces before they glanced up, and finally let go of the hand hold they had. 

It scared him how much it hurt to let her go. The hand hold hadn’t meant anything, it was just a supportive gesture between friends, and yet… he’d craved it like his lungs craved the air he breathed. 

“We should probably get going, you’ve got a big fight scene tomorrow, and I’ve got to prepare myself for the amount of liquor Poe wants to imbibe to make the bar scene as genuine as possible,” she told him, causing him to snort as he pushed himself up, and they stood together, preparing to make their way out of the trailer and off the set for the day.

“Let’s go home,” he said, then he took her hand in his, and pushed the door open. 

*

Three days later, their first meeting with the choreographer was underway. They were inside the set, sitting casually side by side in the temple as Poe prepared to go over the scene with them, and they waited for Amilyn Holdo to arrive, and begin choreographing. A mattress lay at the center of the floor, one of those gym mats they always used for stunts, and it squeaked weirdly each time Poe walked over it. 

“Poe, can you please not walk on the mattress we’re about to fuck on? I don’t want your nasty foot dirt getting on my back,” Ben protested eventually, causing Rey to laugh for the first time in a while as she leaned against him. 

A smile bloomed on his face as Poe looked down at where he was standing, then his eyes went wide. “Shit, sorry,” he muttered, then he cleared his throat. “Anyway, getting down to business. You two…” He pointed to Ben first then Rey. “Start on opposite sides of the temple, the purpose of this being that Ben is coming from the north and Rey is coming from the South. You come in, you talk, and then you kiss.” Looking up at them, his eyes searched theirs for any sign that this sounded foreign to them. “All good so far?”

“We know all of this, Poe, let’s just get the uncomfortable shit over with,” Ben said, wincing as he spoke. He didn’t want Rey thinking he was uncomfortable, but the very idea of a sex scene was an uncomfortable thing no matter how many times he did it. 

“Right, sorry.”

“Uncomfortable?” Rey asked quietly as Poe continued rambling on. 

“Sex scenes are always a little weird, just follow my lead, you’ll be fine,” he promised her, resting a comforting hand on her shoulder as they both turned their attention back on Poe.

“So, obviously after the main kiss, clothes start coming off. We’ll start worrying about those directions a bit more once we have the costumes fully ready, but mostly I need the two of you on the floor by the end of this. Amilyn and I have been working to fine tune some of the details, but it’ll be a lot of close shots. Really intimate stuff. The kind of thing that makes people go--’ whoa , do you two need the room to yourselves?’” Poe looked excited, perhaps a bit too excited given that he was about to spend the day watching him and Rey pretend to have sex. 

Beside him, Rey shook her head, almost as if she were thinking the exact same thing. “So we almost need to actually have sex onscreen?”

“You just need to make it very, very convincing. The rest of the world doesn’t exist, it’s just the two of you. The rest of it?” Poe gestured to the entire temple, then he gave them an almost mystified grin. “The rest of the world just fades away.”

Ben and Rey looked at each other one last time. Before they committed to this, he wanted to be sure she was ready, with no doubt in his mind that this would go off without a hitch. Luckily, she gave him a subtle nod, and looked back at Poe. “So we’re just very heatedly kissing without clothes on?”

Poe’s head bobbed a little from side to side. “Kinda, but a bit more than that. It needs to look like you’re no longer completely separate. You are joined. You’re part of one another. It’s… gonna feel more like softcore porn than anything else.”

A low whistle escaped Ben, and Rey giggled beside him as a knock sounded at a nearby door, then she fell silent. “Is that Amilyn?”

“Probably,” Poe replied, then he turned his attention on the door, and cupped a hand around his mouth. “Come in!”

Two seconds later, the black door just beyond the upper steps of the temple on the left hand side of the room, and a woman with a head of bright lilac-pink, curly hair walked in. She gave them a quick wave as she shut the door behind her, then they heard the sound of heels clacking against the stone of the temple floor as she descended the three large stadium style steps to the main floor. “Good afternoon,” she said casually, then the other three repeared it as she came to a stop beside Poe. “First things first, let’s get introductions out of the way. Ben and Poe, I already know you both, but you…” She turned her gaze on Rey, then took a few steps forward, and held out her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Rey.”

“Nice to meet you, too.”

The other woman stepped back, then her hands rested at her side as she spoke. “It’s my understanding that you’ve never filmed a scene like this?”

“No, never,” Rey replied, but as she looked down, Ben could see she was blushing, undoubtedly thinking of everything they’d been doing over the past week. “This’ll be my first.”

“But you’re comfortable going all out like this?”

“I am. I trust Ben, he’s a good scene partner everywhere else, so… What other kind of shenanigans can we get into on camera, you know?” she asked, then they both laughed nervously. “I want to do this.”

“Okay, then we’ll take this slow.” Amilyn gestured, then she summoned them forward to the mattress Poe was still standing on in spite of them having asked him not to. “Dameron, off the mattress, you two, on the mattress.”

“Fuck,” Poe breathed, then he shook his head as he stepped off. “Sorry, I’m so sorry.”

*

Day one was about mechanics, learning the basics. Amilyn had full control while Poe sat in the background, his face unexpectedly serious as he took notes of everything they and their choreographer were doing, already working to improve and edit the scene long before filming began. 

They had another three weeks before they had to start worrying about that. 

If he was being honest, this was the best day of his life. Ben spent the day kissing Rey everywhere. She was on the ground beneath him when they did the first run through of the choreography after learning it, and his mouth covered on her jaw, her neck, her chest, her stomach, and her inner fucking thighs, causing him to nearly drop character time after time as they ran through it like they’d been doing this all their lives. 

The first attempt had been the hardest. “You’re still holding on,” he told her as Kylo, then they set about the motions they’d been given. They came together for another kiss, tongues meeting in the middle as they knelt down together, somehow managing not to break apart as their knees both found the mattress, then he slowly bent her back to the floor, barely able to think as she kissed him like she was… in love with him. 

They were just pretending, right?

Then Rey moaned very realistically when he kissed her pulse point, and his cock became achingly hard, his mind struggling to believe that this was all still an illusion, that it wasn’t real. He wondered what Amilyn and Poe thought of that sound, if they suspected that it was anything different from what was rehearsed and planned. Hopefully they just believed this was a career making performance, and not a genuine sound of arousal. 

Still, he couldn’t help smirking against her skin as he then planted a kiss over the thin fabric of the tank top she was wearing, his lips dangerously close to her nipple—and fuck, he hadn’t even considered the moment he might have gotten to see Rey without her shirt—as he descended further down. 

He kissed her in places he hadn’t even kissed her yet when they were fooling around in private. Her hands were in his hair as he planted them over her stomach, as he took one of her legs and let it rest over his shoulder, and suddenly he was imagining something else. 

She was wet, he could smell it through the fabric of her leggings as he pressed his lips to her thigh, his nose brushing against the crotch of the fabric to find a tiny little dampness there. No, Rey wasn’t wet, she was fucking soaked, and lucky her pants were black. His cock, somehow, got even harder. 

Maybe he wasn’t supposed to, but he kissed her there like he was on some kind of mission, his kisses peppering her inner thighs as his nose only just avoided bumping into her clit. Her hands gripped his hair tight, her hips canting slightly towards his mouth in a way that suggested she didn’t care about the audience they had. If he asked her to, would she have fucked him then and there?

_ That  _ was a filthy thought, but judging by the sounds she was making, even though she was whispering Kylo’s name, she was thinking them, too. 

The entire day felt debauched in a way that it hadn’t the entire time they’d been hooking up, and he started to wonder if he could ask her yet to let him taste her, to let him go down on her for the first time. Had they reached that stage? Were they at that point yet? Had this day changed them so much that they were now…?

After round one, though, it became easier to control. The motions returned to being mechanical, but he still felt like something had shifted nonetheless, like something had changed, and they weren’t going to be able to stop themselves from taking this just a little bit further. 

Filming the scene wouldn’t feel like this, he knew. It would feel awkward and mechanical, and it wouldn’t feel as genuine as it did here, now, with her, the choreographer, and Poe the only people present. Two people watching he could forget about, but a whole room? He almost didn’t want to do it now because of the thought of anyone else watching them, watching  _ her. _

That thought struck him as a little bit possessive, but it was true. He didn’t want other people watching her, watching something that up until now only he had gotten to witness. It wasn’t like he was her boyfriend, though, and that wasn’t up to him anyway. It was up to her whether or not she wanted to be seen, even if they were together.

He needed to reel himself in, to come back to reality and get through this rehearsal and this scene over with, and if he was being honest, that was the best thing he could do for Rey, too. Odds were, she didn’t feel the same way about him that he felt about her--because, really, when did that happen--and therefore? He needed to get a fucking grip. 

By the time the rehearsal was over, Ben still felt like kind of a mess, but less of a mess than he’d been before. He found himself almost at peace with his state of being, his mind and body just a little more at ease than it had been when he’d started having those  _ thoughts _ at the beginning. 

Still, he felt most relaxed when he finally stood up, and offered her his hand, pulling her to a standing position alongside him as Poe clapped his approval, and gave them a couple of notes on their dialogue.

“Okay,” Amilyn said after Poe finished with his notes. “You both seem to have the basics down pretty well so far, we’ll add in more of the details on Thursday.” She turned to Poe. “Do you think you could get them some old costumes to use? I want to see if we can maybe get a jump on working with the costume removal, it’s a big part of the vision I have in my head.”

“And it just doesn’t look the same without it?” Poe asked, and all she had to do was nod for him to understand. “Yeah, I can do that. We’ll just use some old ones from last season. I'm sure Ackbar has them lying around somewhere.”

“Perfect.” She then stepped toward Rey, and offered her a kind smile. “You did great today. I would’ve had no idea that you’d never done this before if they hadn’t told me.”

Rey bowed her head in acknowledgment, seeming flustered enough that she barely even noticed when Ben reached up a hand and ruffled her hair. “Thank you, um… thanks,” she replied awkwardly, then she gave a small grin in return as Ben rested his hand on her shoulder. “See you Thursday.”

“And you. Have a good evening, Ben, Poe,” she said, gesturing to each of the men in turn before she began to walk out of the set. 

“Bye, Amilyn,” Both men echoed at the same time, then Poe stood up off the perch he’d kept through the afternoon, and made his way toward Ben. 

“Any notes?” 

Poe gave him a nod. “Yeah, a few, but they’re mostly about the clothing situation, cause Amilyn’s right, it’s a bit harder for you guys to get it perfect without the costumes, but you really went the distance here, it was a great effort.”

“Awesome.”

“But Rey, I noticed at one point that you kind of dropped character?” he asked, looking up from his notes as he approached her. “I’m assuming it was just nerves? Maybe adjusting to having to do something like this in a public setting?”

Another blush crept up her cheeks, and she seemed to grow a little more rigid beside him before he rubbed his thumb gently over her shoulder, then she relaxed slightly. “Yeah, that was it,” she assured him. “I think I’m used to it now, though. I’ll be fine.”

Their boss gave them a nod, then he shut the binder. “Again, just let me know the second either of you are uncomfortable. I know this is a bit intense, and these things are par for the course for the network, but we don’t have to do them if you don’t want to.”

“I think the world might riot if Kira and Kylo don’t fuck onscreen,” she replied, causing Ben to laugh as she nudged his chest with the back of her hand. “We’ve got to give the people what they want.”

A tiny snort left Poe, then he shrugged as he began to back away. “That’s fair, but I’m just making sure you know, you can back out whenever you want to, even if it’s after the scene has already been filmed.”

“Thanks, Poe.”

“All right I’ve kept you on set long enough. You both know what time you have to be here tomorrow, I’ll see you at dawn,” he said, then he gave them a tiny salute, and started making his way from the room as they said their goodbyes. 

Once he was gone, Ben turned to Rey, looking almost a bit sheepish as he removed his hand from her shoulder, and ran it through his hair, dark waves falling across his face in the aftermath that he had to sweep away. “That actually went pretty well.”

Turning to face him fully, he could see that she was smiling. He would’ve found it endearing, and he did, but it then became almost a little weird as she continued staring at him, like she couldn’t help herself. It was like watching a little kid stare at someone in a grocery store. They knew it was wrong, but they couldn’t tear their eyes away from that thing they were looking at. A small part of him began whispering that it meant something, but he ignored that part. There was no way Rey was returning his feelings, not yet. Sure, he’d looked at her like this a few times since realizing that he had feelings for her, but that didn’t mean anything, did it?

“Yeah, it did,” she replied after what felt like forever, interrupting his thoughts as she tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, watching a few crew members walk in, their sights set on the mattress Poe had left at the center of the temple. Apparently he’d summoned someone else to gather it. The showrunner wasn’t exactly in charge of handling that sort of thing. “I thought I’d be more nervous, but… I don’t know, I just felt determined to get it right every time.”

“Yeah, me too,” he replied. “It just got repetitive after a while. Almost boring, but at first it was kind of like… what we do in our apartments.” His tongue came out to wet his lip, and he knew that wasn’t quite the truth, but there was something else pulling at his mind more than the little white lie he’d just told, and so he took in a deep breath, wanting to hear the truth from her lips. “I think you were affected, too.”

She scoffed, but they both knew he was right, she’d been quite affected. “What makes you say that?” 

“Rey, I could feel how wet you were through your leggings at the beginning. You know, when I first put my mouth on your inner thigh? I could feel it, I could smell it, and it nearly killed me.” His voice dropped lower as the workers taking the mattress out of the room walked past them. “Look, I want to take this slowly, but if you want to, and if you’ll let me, I want to taste you. I want to make you come apart with my tongue.”

Her breath hitched, and he thought it might’ve been the end of him to hear such a sweet sound coming from her mouth. Apparently the thought of him going down on her was just as appealing to her as it was to him, maybe she needed this just as badly. He started to hope, to pray that maybe, just maybe, the universe was sending him a sign, that maybe this was just the first step that would lead them down a bigger, grander path, but then she gathered herself, and gave him his answer.

“I want that, too,” she breathed, her voice practically a whisper as the air left her lungs. “Fuck, Ben, I want that, but…”

“You’re not ready for it yet?” he replied, understanding in his voice. He knew he’d wait for her, however long it took, before she was ready. 

“Yeah, not yet.” She stepped forward, though, tilting her head up to look him in the eye as she got a bit too close. “But I wouldn’t say no to a little something when we get back to my apartment.”

“I wouldn’t either.” Without another word, he held out a hand for hers, waiting patiently for her to take it before he laced their fingers together, and they made their way off set and into the parking lot. 

*

Half an hour later, they were sitting in front of the tv in her living room with Parks and Recreation playing casually in the background while they both nursed bottles of hard cider. Unlike the previous week when they’d burst into her apartment and been unable to keep their hands off each other before wandering into the living room, this time was much more casual. All they were doing was sitting with Rey’s legs strewn across his lap and her arm around his shoulders as they took sips out of their drinks, and watched as Ben and Leslie tried to deny their feelings for each other. 

Occasionally they shared casual kisses, and it felt like it was leading somewhere, but given how tired they both were, they were taking their time. They moved slowly, lazily, and for the first few minutes, were more focused on the plot of the show playing than each other. 

It felt a little too intimate, he thought, like they’d crossed some kind of boundary they hadn’t even known existed. Did most people who were just friends with benefits touch each other like this? Did they hold one another while they lazily kissed and drank cider? Did they let themselves loose? 

Fearing how intimate this had become, Ben slipped his hand beneath her top, and things began to speed up. 

“Is this okay?” he asked, slightly out of breath from what little kissing they had been doing. “Can I…?” He took the fabric between his fingers, and began sliding it up, wanting to see what lay beneath her shirt but not wanting to risk making her uncomfortable to do so. “Can I take this off?”

“Yes.” Her voice was equally breathless, then she lifted her arms over her head, allowing Ben’s nimble hands to remove the offending shirt, tossing it over her coffee table before his arms wrapped around her waist again, and held her close as he looked at her, watching her chest heave as they both realized she was now only donning a thin, black bra on her top half, one which he could undo with a single twitch of his fingers on the front-closing clasp. 

He wanted to undo that clasp. He wanted to undo it very badly. If he were being honest, the simple sight of Rey’s cleavage was probably enough to undo him, but another part of him still wanted  _ more _ .

One of her hands came up to caress the base of his skull, pulling him in close for another kiss, their lips coming together as her other hand grasped his, and led his fingers to the clasp. Apparently, he’d taken too long. He shuddered against her at the realization of how eager she was as she let his index finger and thumb pinch it just right, and the clasp came undone, but he didn’t stop kissing her--he never stopped kissing her. 

Ben’s hands moved up, fingertips ghosting over the swell of her breasts as he moaned softly against her mouth. He could feel her lips tug upwards in a grin as her tongue swept along the line of his lower lip, begging entrance into his mouth just as he found the straps of her bra, and began to push them down her shoulders. Both of them were trembling slightly as her hands moved away from him to shuck the bra somewhere over the coffee table as well, then he lowered her against the couch, fighting back another shiver as he felt the hardened peaks of her nipples brush against his chest. 

They took a couple of seconds to adjust to this new position, then he pulled away, taking a brief break from kissing her to just… stare. His eyes swept over her bare chest, taking in her small breasts and the contours of her abdominal muscles as she panted beneath him. His breath was taken away for a few seconds, and it seemed like an eternity passed before he started breathing again, and slowly, curiously, he placed one of his hands at her waist, his thumb resting just beneath her left breast as he took in her bare upper half, seeing her body for the first time. “Christ…”

“What?” she asked, voice quiet and almost concerned. Little did she know she had nothing to worry about. Rey’s body was perhaps one of the most beautiful he’d ever seen. She was a work of art, if he was being honest, the woman lying beneath him was sculpted better than any art a human being could hope to produce.

“I hope this doesn’t come across the wrong way, but--” His eyes met hers, and he’d never seen her pupils so dilated, he noticed. Her hazel eyes had gone almost black, and he knew damn well why that was so. “You’re beautiful.”

Her breathing shuddered, then she looked away from him for a second, swallowing what he thought was nerves. “Thanks.”

Neither of them said anything for a moment, then Ben leaned down again, and kissed her softly, his lips sealing themselves with hers as her arms came up to wrap around his shoulders, her hands finding their way into his hair as his brain whited out, and everything became numb but electric all the same. 

That feeling only grew bigger, became more intense as he moved his kisses down, and she gasped softly as he kissed her neck, her jaw, and her collarbone in a series of slow, lingering touches that had her softly whispering his name every time he changed locations. “Ben,” she breathed, and he could feel goosebumps form on her arms, legs, and everywhere it was possible to get them as his kisses slowly trailed down onto her chest. 

His lips touched the swell of her left breast, and he drew the touches out into a slow, practiced torture, wanting to live and breathe every second he got the chance to touch her like this, to revel in the way it made him feel when he went milimeter by milimeter across her skin until his lips just barely ghosted over her nipple. They were both breathing unsteadily then, but Rey inhaled sharply as he finally moved, taking her nipple into his mouth, and swirling his tongue around it. 

His teeth grazed the edge of it as he pulled off, then he pressed one last kiss there before moving on to the other one the same way he’d approached the first. Each kiss was tiny, sensual, and so gentle he feared somehow he was exposing his true feelings through every single one, but somehow, she didn’t notice, didn’t see the extent of his feelings for her, and a part of him wondered if she ever would.

If she couldn’t see him now, when he was almost shouting loud and clear that he was falling in love with her, would she ever be able to see it? Would she ever be able to feel the same way? 

“Ben, fuck, ” she whispered as he took her other nipple into his mouth, groaning softly as he sucked it between his lips, his tongue flicking gently at the pebbled skin. 

Maybe she was just too lost in the feelings he was bringing her, just like he’d been the other day when she’d stroked him to completion in her hand. Maybe it was just that simple. This was all new for her, she might not have known to think of the emotional weight of it yet, but only time would tell. 

The feeling it brought, even though he wasn’t the one being pleasured, was one he wanted to be lost in forever, one that made him realize that all he needed in life was Rey and her hands in his hair as he sucked gently at her nipples. Things never escalated beyond him taking off his shirt that night, they never took off anymore clothing, and they never sped up the kissing nor slowed it down, they just stayed like that--soft, slow, and sensual, and they drowned in it together. 

Somehow, he imagined, they’d found an act more intimate than sex, though he knew that the reason was because he was so very deeply into the pit of falling for her.

Ben was a goner, and he knew beyond all doubt that he would never be climbing out of that pit, but he was okay with that. This was his happy place now, his face buried in her chest, her arms holding him close, and his mind at ease with the knowledge that at least on some level, she loved him and what they were doing. 

Even if it was just platonic.


	5. Down, but not with the Sickness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not that different except for the end, but have fun!

After that first rehearsal, Ben began counting down the days until they inevitably fell into one another again. Sure, they continued to fool around, but it never escalated, never grew more intense. It just remained casual, and he was fine with that, but he knew it wouldn’t stay that way. 

Every time they rehearsed, he could feel how wet she was, how badly she wanted it to be real, how much she  _ needed  _ it to be real. She probably wanted it more than he did, and as the time began to pass, he knew neither of them would be satisfied with her getting wet and him just taking in the scent of her forever. 

Eventually, they were going to cave, and the explosion was going to be the most beautiful death he could’ve imagined. 

Some time later, after they’d finished filming their scenes for the day, Rey and Ben were standing together outside the costume trailer waiting patiently for Poe to return to set with Amilyn. They’d been decked out in under armor that day—since their showrunner had declared they would both remove their armor prior to the beginning of the scene—and in Rey’s case, unfortunately, the sex scene appropriate underwear. 

At the moment, Ben was being subjected to a lecture about how uncomfortable the pasties over her nipples were. They apparently itched like mosquito bites, and according to her, it would take multiple showers to erase the stickiness of them from her poor breasts. 

“If it helps, the sock on my dick isn’t exactly comfortable either,” he said, shifting uncomfortably as said Dick sock tried its best to chafe the poor skin of his cock, and yet something in the way Rey was looking at him made Ben realize that she didn’t seem to think his dick problems were as bad as her chest. 

He got confirmation of this when she scoffed as the back of her hand came up and smacked him in the chest. “Yeah, but when we change back into our regular clothes at the end of the day, your cock won’t be sticking to your thighs. My tits, Ben, will be stuck to my bra. They will never be free.”

He snorted his laughter as she rolled her eyes at him, which for some reason only made him laugh harder. Then when he caught sight of her scowl, though, he was openly guffawing as his hands came down to support themselves on his knees, and he hunched over. “Drama queen,” he grumbled between fits of laughter.

“Oh, you’re just lucky you’re a man. If the world considered your nipples as unsafe for work as they do mine, it’d all be over for you, buddy.”

“I don’t doubt that,” he told her, then he stood up straighter as the last of his giggles left him. “But I love yanking your chain. You’re more reactive than you think you are, and it’s hilarious.”

“You’re an ass.”

“You love it.”

“Eat me,” she growled, then they both froze as they remembered what they’d been dancing around for the last several days. 

Sure, he’d said he’d be down for it days ago after their first rehearsal, and the only thing they were waiting for was her say so, but—

It was another thing entirely to address it out loud, because if she gave him the all-clear, if she told him she was ready, the game changed. 

“Do you want me to?” Ben asked, feeling almost hesitant, almost anxious to ask her this, to cross that line. “I know we talked about it, but—“

“Yes,” she said suddenly, interrupting him without warning as she gave him a nod. “I want you to.”

His eyes widened from her unexpected answer, but at the same time, his shoulders relaxed. “You sure? I know you were kind of hesitant about it the other day—“

“Ben,” she breathed, reaching out to grasp his arm in one hand. “I want this. I wouldn’t say yes if I didn’t. I-I want to know what it feels like—regardless of whether or not we’ll be faking this for the cameras soon.”

The corners of Ben’s mouth twitched up as he looked down at where she was touching him, then his eyes drifted up to meet hers. For a couple of seconds after that, they just stared at one another, their way yes locked, and he let himself pretend that this was more than just an accidental glance, let himself pretend that this was something more, that  _ they  _ were something more. 

For some reason, their chests were heaving as if they’d just climbed a flight of stairs. Then she said his name quietly, sweetly as if she loved him, and he found his eyes flickering down ever so briefly to her lips. 

God, he wanted to kiss her, he wanted to kiss her so badly, but a combination of things prevented him from doing so. The first was fear, the unfiltered, intense fear that she would reject him and she was just under the same temporary spell he was. 

The second was the sound of Poe Dameron shouting their names, and commencing the beginning of rehearsal number three. Up until then, he thought they’d actually almost been having fun at these rehearsals in spite of the awkwardness, but right then, as Poe and Amilyn approached them with smiles on their faces, he thought he might just want to fling himself over a cliff or maybe just take Rey’s hand and run. 

Walking back into their rehearsal space, laying out the mat, and waiting for their cues had never been more excruciating. After the conversation they’d had, all he wanted to do was take her back to his place, throw her on the bed, and start ripping off clothing as if he’d gone feral. 

Would she want that? For him to tear open that shirt she was wearing? To pop open the button of her jeans? To leave her with little choice but to leave his apartment in one of his sweaters that went so far down her thighs it was a dress?

Would she ever want it a little rough?

“Okay, today we’re going to run the blocking slowly to accommodate the costumes,” Amilyn said, opening up a binder that was undoubtedly filled with her various notes on the scene. A copy of the script was visible, and he could see it was marked up to hell with highlighter pens. A spare glance at Rey confirmed that she’d seen it, too, and the two of them shared a brief, tiny grin. “I want to be sure nothing’s too awkward or needs to be changed. I trust you both to tell me if something’s uncomfortable?”

Both he and Rey nodded, then Poe directed them to take their places in the edges of the space, and told them to begin. 

Without needing further direction, both of their stances shifted, Ben became Kylo, and he spoke his first line, “You shouldn’t be here,” he said, then the scene commenced, that heat already blossoming in his chest as he thought about where this would lead. 

Everything went perfectly, according to plan, and he started to think that maybe they might get through this rehearsal unscathed, or rather, it did until he managed to get her trousers off, leaving her almost entirely exposed save for the strip of underwear she’d been granted. He shuddered as he took in the scent of her, already wet and ready for him, as if this was real. This was probably going to be the death of him, Ben thought as he began planting kisses on the inside of her thighs like he’d been directed to.

Death was stimulating oral sex on Rey in front of an audience and not being allowed to just give in to temptation and show her what he could do with his mouth. 

Then he felt his nose accidentally brushed her clit as he turned his head, and she gasped involuntarily, that sound echoing in his brain over and over like all of his favorite sounds she made. He dropped character for a fraction of a second to give her a tiny wink, and she dropped character, in turn, to give him the world’s smallest glare as the devil on his shoulder howled with glee. 

He crawled over her, watching her eyes shift back into character, and he got a preview of what it would be like for her to look at him with love in her eyes as she pulled him in for a kiss, kissing him more fiercely than he’d been kissed by her before. It wasn’t quite directed, but he found he didn’t mind as she ran her hand through his hair in that specific way that always made him moan when they were kissing at home, and though it wasn’t directed, he definitely moaned. 

The kiss ended seconds later, then the key part of the scene began. Ben as Kylo began undoing the laces of his pants, working them effortlessly before he pushed them just far enough that his cock could hypothetically spring free if it weren’t strapped to his thigh like it was—and  _ god,  _ he couldn’t wait for that damned sock to be gone so they could do this for real—then began the task of pretending to line themselves up, looking each other in the eyes as if it were that final moment before everything really changed forever. 

That moment was coming, he knew it was coming. He needed it like he needed air. What would it feel like to be surrounded by her? To have his cock sheathed in… in Rey? There were so many questions he wanted the answers to, and odds were, with time, he’d hear them all. 

And by the end of the rehearsal, another tiny sign that they would be ready to take things further soon appeared. In the end, Rey told them she felt confident enough in the scene that Poe told them they’d earned a slight break, and they’d be back next week—six days before the scene would be filmed. They had less than two weeks now, but for some reason, that didn’t make him feel anxious. 

He just felt excited. 

*

It was just before sunset that afternoon when they were finally freed to go home. As he and Rey walked out of the parking lot toward her car, he could feel the adrenaline pumping through his veins just thinking about the potential his evening had now that they were free. She’d told him earlier she was ready, and that meant… that meant when they got back home, he was going to— _ fuck _ . 

Something told him as they got in the car and she was also buzzing slightly in the driver’s seat, that she was just as excited as he was. It was then that he realized she really had been feeling the exact same energy he’d been feeling all day, and it started to become clear at that moment that they both wanted it very badly. They both  _ needed  _ it. 

Ben and Rey drove home in large part in silence, but both of them kept looking at the other out of the corner of their eyes with knowing glances that promised something more was coming. Excitement flooded his veins, making him feel as jittery as a child going up the hill on a roller coaster. It was silly, he’d done this before, been in this position before, but something about her made him feel, well, as Madonna said,  _ Like a Virgin.  _

When they got home, the feeling increased tenfold. 

Ben could see Rey was trembling slightly as they got into the elevator, her whole body tingling with the same excitement he had as the elevator began to rise. He wondered what she was thinking about then, what was on her mind as they exchanged side glances at one another, both nearly ready to jump out of their skin as the numbers on the little digital screen above the buttons. 

The moment the doors opened on her floor, she reached for Ben’s hand and led him outside. “So what’s the best way to do this?”

“This?”

“You know…” She gestured between them, eyes drifting down to his lips briefly as they approached her apartment. “This. ”

“Oh, uh—well—there are a few ways we can do it, actually. You could lie down, straddle my face, you could be sitting, standing… it’s up to you. Whatever feels comfortable.”

God that felt weird to talk about it so clinically like that, to break the act down into steps, but she didn’t know. This was something she needed to learn, and he was more than willing to teach her. 

“I don’t think I trust myself to even be standing,” she said, and his cheeks flushed ever so slightly—he could feel it. “So um, maybe my bedroom?”

“Your what?”

“My bedroom, so I could um… lie down?” She looked up at him expectantly as she fished her apartment keys out of her pocket, and he lost all sense of thought for a few seconds. 

“Yeah, that sounds fine,” he replied, shoving his hands in his pockets as she opened up the door, and they stepped in together. “Like I said. It just matters that you’re comfortable. If you don’t like one position, we’ll change to another or stop altogether.”

She gave him a slightly apprehensive look, but then nodded, and continued tugging on his hand as she walked them both into her bedroom, and he was suddenly aware of every charged particle of static electricity in the air. 

Once they were inside, she let go of his hand and took off her jacket, tossing it over a chair that waited patiently by a desk littered with scripts that had been highlighted to hell, then she turned around, and reached out for his hand again. “So where do we start, then?” she asked softly, his eyes drifting down to her lips as a silent request for her to just kiss him already. 

“Ben,” she breathed, clearly having noticed, then she gasped as he lost his patience, cupped the base of her skull in one palm, his fingers tangling into the braids their hair stylist had intricately crafted that morning as he leaned in and kissed her. 

The temperature in the room was already hotter than it had any right to be, but with that kiss it went up another ten degrees. Their body heat radiated between them, an incineration of the finest sort rushing through him as he began to walk forward, guiding her back toward the bed, and her arms wrapped around his neck to stabilize herself, bringing them closer together as he led her to the bed. 

As they drew closer, his tongue swept along the line of her lower lip, and she moaned softly into his mouth as the backs of her legs hit the edge of her mattress. He fought back a smirk as a thought appeared in his head, a very good, very wonderful, and utterly devious thought. 

It was the type of thought he just had to follow through on, and so he lifted her from the ground, his heart beating a little bit faster as she gasped into the kiss, her legs wrapping around his hips so that her heels dug into his ass as he lowered her onto the mattress. 

Slowly, their combined weight sank into her mattress, and he never stopped kissing her all the while—not even when he brought his hands out from under her. He just kept moving his lips in time with hers, worshipping her like a queen as the kiss grew longer and more intense, and he lost himself in it so thoroughly, he almost forgot what they were there for. He was so willing, so ready to just spend his day kissing her, that for a few seconds, those visions of his tongue buried deep inside of her left his brain. 

Eventually, he came to his senses, and his hand made its way up her body so that his fingers were pulling the back of her neck up, causing her to arch her chin into the air as his kisses broke away from her lips, and began to descend along the line of her jaw just like they did during their scene. When his lips touched her collarbone, she quietly whispered his name just once, then she clenched her jaw as if forcing herself to keep quiet. 

All that did was make him smirk a little as he continued his line of descent, as his kisses trailed along the hard bone at the center of her chest, and he began to let one hand wander down the line of half the v formed by her hips. She shuddered beneath him as his fingers found the hem of her shirt, then pushed it up slightly as his kisses continued to wander further and further down, his hands removing her clothing slowly, agonizingly slowly, drawing out the torture for both of them as her breathing grew heavy. 

He undid the zipper, then his fingers crawled up at a snail’s pace to latch beneath her waistband, and he could feel her growing impatient beneath him. Several agitated twitches shook her body, then she growled at him. “Just take them off already or I’ll kick them off myself.” 

But all that did was cause Ben to laugh as she lifted her ass from the mattress, and he began to peel the fabric down her body, pulling her underwear down along with her jeans. Within just a few seconds, her lower body was completely bared to him for the first time, and he felt like his head was spinning as he took in her cunt, took in the pale, smooth expanse of her inner thighs.She was beautiful, he thought, she looked like something out of a dream when she was beneath him like this, wet and loose, spread out beneath him like a five-course meal. 

“Crawl back to the headboard, I’m gonna need some room,” he told her, as he removed her shoes, then everything fell to the floor then he crawled back on the mattress as she moved back toward the headboard as instructed. 

As she crawled back, he crawled forward, and together they moved until her head was resting on the pillow and he was crawling between her legs, up and over her, until his hair hung around his face like a curtain as he looked down at her. It was tunnel vision, the way he was seeing her, those flushed cheeks the center of his gaze as he looked down at her, a smile slowly blossoming on his face for a second before his face grew serious, and he brushed a piece of hair from her face. 

A breathless sigh escaped her in the form of his name. “Ben…”

“Tell me if you want me to stop.”

She shook her head. “I won’t,” she said, then he shuddered over her as he leaned down to place one last, head-spin-inducing kiss to her lips, then he began to crawl back down her body, and her eyes never left him the entire time, he could feel them boring holes into his skull as he kissed her everywhere, his lips finding every surface of her body and kissing it on his way down. 

He could’ve done that forever, too, but eventually he lifted her legs, and placed them over his shoulders, her thighs resting on either of them as he began to press gentle kisses on the pale skin inside of each one. 

Rey’s entire body was trembling with every kiss, especially as they got closer and closer to her apex, to where he knew she was wet because of him. He could see it, he could  _ smell  _ it, just like when they rehearsed the scene earlier. Unlike those rehearsals, there was absolutely nothing separating his mouth and her skin anymore, and he wouldn’t just be hovering awkwardly right above her clit, he was going to actually take it into his fucking mouth. 

Her hands began to move down, shifting until they were able to bury themselves in his hair just as he started pressing kisses to the interior of her other thigh, his heart pounding against his chest, as he felt the softness of her skin beneath his lips, and curiosity begged him to find out what she tasted like further down, begged him to show her how he felt for her with her with every kiss, every touch, and soon enough, he caved to it.

He pressed an open-mouthed kiss right to her cunt and tasted her. She sighed his name again with a swear as his tongue came out from between his lips, and licked a stripe from her entrance to her clit, sinking deep into her before he moved up, applying enough pressure that she gasped beneath him, whimpering his name even though he’d only been touching her for a few seconds. 

“Do it again,” she breathed in a rush as his tongue abandoned her clit. “Sweet fuck do it again.”

Ben laughed against her skin, then he obeyed her command, beginning to stroke her cunt with smooth, swift strokes as his hands came up to hold her thighs against his shoulders. He could feel them wobbling, and he wondered if she had been even trying to hide it for so much as one second. The shivering was intense, but he maintained control, causing her to whisper his name again as his tongue dipped inside of her again. 

His nose bumped her clit as he went, beginning to explore places only their hands had ever touched, tasting her properly as she melted beneath him, and he took her in. She tasted like something sinful, something that would send him directly to hell, like forbidden fruit from the garden of Eden. 

This felt like the closest thing to heaven that he would ever find, and as Rey propped her head up on her arm, and grasped his hair a little more tightly, he moaned against her clit, causing her to return the sound as she watched him move. 

It was utterly debauched, what he was doing, and yet he did it softly, sweetly, his tongue exploring her at a slow pace, taking his time in an attempt to prove he wasn’t in any rush to make her come so that he could get off of her and run to grab the Listerine like they did in those bad pornos he knew she’d been watching. Hell, he thought there was even a chance he was enjoying it more than she was. 

That thought in his head, Ben began swirling his tongue around her clit, and a loud, obscene moan escaped her, and they could only pray her neighbors either weren’t home or hadn’t noticed, because another one followed shortly after when he took her clit between his lips and sucked. 

He watched as her eyes clamped shut, and she grasped his hair even more tightly, causing him to groan from the pain against her clit. Seconds later, his name left her lips approximately half a dozen times, seeming to be the only thing she was capable of saying, the pleasure of what he was doing to her either overwhelming or… he wasn’t sure what else it could be, but it was a good sign. 

Of that much, he was certain. 

As his tongue stroked her clit like he had some sort of religious conviction to do so, and he could feel her steadily starting to lose control. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she breathed, then she tugged on his hair again, forcing another tiny moan from his lips as he watched a smile part hers. “Ben, I’m close.”

He hummed against her skin again, then he moved off of her clit, resuming what he’d done at the beginning of this encounter but at a much faster pace. She clamped a hand over her mouth, ditching the armrest she’d had to silence herself as he began fucking her with his tongue again, his nose consistently brushing her clit so that there was enough pressure on it that it took all his effort to keep her from bucking her hips up into his face. 

It seemed she was struggling, too. Soft little whimpers left her as she bit down into her palm, but that was not enough. He needed to hear her, to listen to those cries, to let them fill his ears like music as she came around his tongue, and so Ben paused his ministrations, lifting his head briefly so his eyes could lock onto hers as they both panted harder than they ever had before. “Put your hand down,” he told her, then he let his tongue come out briefly, brushing her clit once before he came up again. “I want to hear you say my name when you come.”

Nodding, Rey put her arm back beneath her head, leaving herself free to cry out when he descended upon her again, sucking her clit into her mouth as he hummed delightedly against it. He then resumed what he’d been doing just before he’d told her to stop covering her mouth, his tongue burying itself inside of her once more—

Just seconds later, he felt her fluttering around his tongue, shouting his name as she came, her back arching off the mattress. His hands on her thighs, as her hips shifted again, holding her close against him as he watched her come undone. “Ben… fuck…” 

He laughed against her cunt as she finally stopped shaking around him, as the only movements her body made were caused by the heaving of her chest, then he released her from his mouth. She stared at him as he took in several deep breaths, looking at her like he was hypnotized by what he was seeing as he panted from what he’d done. Ben’s mouth was hanging open, and he watched her eyes lower to his lips as his tongue darted out to collect the drop resting there. Another tiny hint of her filled his mouth, and he let himself hum from pleasure as he swallowed, and slowly opened his eyes, then he freed her legs from his shoulders and crawled over her again, looking down at the woman he loved as his face hovered over her own. 

Both of them were still breathing hard like the wind had been knocked out of them, like they’d just taken some sort of drug and they were still coming down from its high. There was something happening there in that moment, something he hoped meant would change everything, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t. Not yet at least. Not until he knew for certain whether or not she returned his feelings. 

Wordlessly, she reached up, and brushed the hair from his eyes, looking into the golden flecks that were illuminated by the last rays of sunlight streaming through her window as she pulled him in a little closer, her eyes fluttering closed as she leaned in for a kiss. 

Before their lips could meet, though, there was one thing he needed to hear. “Was it good for you?” he asked softly, gently, feeling almost as if he too had experienced a first time. 

She gave him the slightest of nods. “Absolutely perfect,” she replied, then he leaned down a little more, and kissed her as tenderly as he could manage, and together they melted into her mattress like that. They kissed for far longer than was probably necessary, but it was beautiful, he thought, the kind of kiss that they’d shared after work on the day of their first rehearsal. 

It was intimate and sensual, the kind of slow and sweet that he thought only lovers shared, and it filled him with hope. There were several little signs over the past several days where he’d thought she might’ve started to fall for him in turn, but none of them had ever been strong enough like this was to make him think he wasn’t just imagining it. This was different, this was scary, and yet it made him feel like he was floating on cloud nine all the same. 

Eventually, Rey broke the kiss, pulling away from him with a kiss drunk look on her face as her hand came up to rest on his cheek. A tiny rush of breath left him as he wondered what she was thinking, what was going on in that beautiful mind. “What is it?”

“Will you stay tonight?” she asked him, her voice quiet as she moved the hand on his cheek to his chest, and he wondered if she could feel his heart hammering against her palm as hard as he could. “I might’ve stolen a sweater of yours last time if you need it.”

“Oh?” He shifted on top of her, leaning in a little closer so his lips brushed over hers as he spoke. “You stole my sweater? And now you think you’re being generous by offering it to me as pajamas? My sweater?”

A tiny giggle escaped her as she leaned forward to capture his lips in a kiss. “Maybe?”

“Mmm, we’re not even dating, Rey, we’re just friends with benefits,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound mournful as he spoke. Still, he wished that they were dating all the same. “Sweater stealing is for people who are dating.”

Laughing nervously, she paused, then her eyes opened to glimpse his, both of them taking the other in for a moment as if they were considering what he’d said, considering making a change. He started to wonder if this was the moment, if this was the day he finally got his answer. 

Of course, fate had never been a kind mistress, and Rey smacked his shoulder teasingly as she twisted her hips, and rolled them over so that he was beneath her, and she was now straddling him. “Maybe so, but your sweater was comfortable and maybe I stole it because I wanted you to stay here and do this to me all night.”

His eyebrows skyrocketed toward his hairline. “All night?”

“Oh yeah, all night,” she replied, then she leaned down to kiss him again, his arms rushing up to wrap around her waist as he pulled her close, moaning softly against her lips. He melted into the kiss instantly, his lips soft and pliant beneath hers as she kissed the air from his lungs, as she—

Before he could adjust properly to the rhythm of the kiss though, she pulled back, and he groaned at the loss of her. “What?”

“So you’ll stay?”

“Yeah,” he replied, pulling her in for another kiss. “I’ll stay.” Then as she giggled delightedly, he tightened his grip around her, kissing her fiercely as he turned them over again, and they continued kissing as the time went on, hope slowly taking root in his heart that things would eventually change, and they’d never be the same again. 


	6. Falling

After that, Ben and Rey started spending a lot more nights together at each other’s apartments. In fact, at some point, they’d managed to fool around on just about every conceivable surface of his apartment except for his kitchen. That was just off-limits. 

If they weren’t spending their nights with each other, they were spending them with the cast. The nights that he wound up drunk and possibly in some occasions  _ high  _ were numerous, though that wasn’t exactly outside of the norm of what they did. What was different was that his arm wound up wrapped around Rey whenever they’d go out together or even hang out at someone else’s place. He was always whispering something in her ear and she was always giggling and he started to feel like maybe they were already becoming a couple without realizing it. 

As a result, time passed in a fucking blur. 

Somehow, they got to the point where there was only a week until the scene was to be filmed. As of that point, Rey seemed calm to him. Ben kept asking her if she was, but she kept assuring him she was fine, and that checked out. With every rehearsal, she seemed to grow more confident in what was happening, she moved more like she knew what she was doing, and even the rest of the cast could sense a newfound pride radiating from her. 

People did, however, ask them questions sometimes, and  _ that  _ made him nervous. By people, he mostly meant Gwen and Poe, who’d been hounding him, but still. He had a feeling those same people would be hounding Rey before she was ready to be questioned, and knew that somehow, he needed to put a stop to it. 

One day at a lunch break. That was exactly what he did. 

All they’d been doing was discussing a scene between himself and Armitage, but then Gwen has cracked a joke about how “maybe Ben should have sex with him, too,” and an uncomfortable shiver had passed through him. 

“Wait, that’s who Ben’s been hooking up with?” Poe’s face lit up in delight as he looked between them. 

“No he’s been—“

“No not Armitage,” Ben protested, shaking his head vehemently as heat flooded his body, making him feel as though he were about to break out into a cold sweat. “Someone else.”

Poe’s voice was casual, and when he wasn’t acting, Ben was a terrible liar. So when his friend casually asked, “Rey?” It was a dead giveaway as to who Gwen had been talking about. 

“Can you keep it down?” he asked, his eyes wearily searching their surroundings to see if anyone else had heard them. “I don’t think Rey’s comfortable with other people knowing, and to be honest, neither am I.”

As he took a bite of his pizza—Poe had elected to order Papa John’s that day—their showrunner gave him a nod. “Yeah, sorry.”

“No problem, mate,” Gwen replied, then she nudged Ben on the arm as he took a sip of his drink. “But you might want to stop giving her the ‘fuck me’ eyes every time you’re in the same room together. It makes it a tad obvious.”

Spitting out his water, Ben fought to keep from choking as he thought back through every time he’d been with his costar over the past few weeks. Had he actually been making eyes at her in public? Had he made it obvious without meaning to? He’d sworn to himself that he was going to keep it a secret, but if other people could see how badly he wanted her—in more than just the physical way, especially—perhaps he wasn’t as successful as he thought. 

“Are you trying to kill him, Gwen?” Poe asked through a round of laughter. 

“Not intentionally,” she replied, then she looked at him in concern. “Christ, Ben are you all right?”

Coughing one last time, Ben slowly managed a nod. “Yeah, I’m great.” Another cough. “But do I really make ‘fuck me’ eyes at Rey?”

“You do,” his companions answered in unison. 

A smile blossomed on her face, then Gwen reached over to rustle his hair, causing him to grimace slightly in the process. “It’s almost cute, Solo.” 

“Fuck off.”

Looking around, Poe leaned in close to them, lowering his voice as the conversation continued. “No, ‘fuck me’ eyes aren’t cute. You know what’s cute?” 

_ This wasn’t going to end well.  _ “What, Poe?”

“Heart eyes. That’s what he gives her.” The showrunner then crossed his arms over his chest, beaming proudly like he’d just made some sort of groundbreaking revelation. “Benny-boy has been struck by Cupid’s arrow of  _ love _ , Gwen.”

The shade Ben could feel his cheeks slowly warming to must’ve been some spectacular shade of crimson. He must’ve looked like he had two tomatoes instead of cheeks as he flushed rather visibly, and forced himself to look away from his coworkers.  _ Was it really that obvious?  _ It was one thing if everyone knew they were fucking, but if they figured out the other thing?

Gwen already knew he liked her. Now that Poe had figured it out, too…  _ God, he was so screwed.  _

“Look can we just agree to drop it?” Ben asked, shifting restlessly in his seat as if he were about to jump out of it and run at any moment.

At last, they seemed to finally sense his discomfort, and slowly both Poe and Gwen nodded, and the subject shifted to one he felt slightly more comfortable with. “So, should I make Finn and I’s characters a couple, or will the network shoot us down?” he asked, launching them into a debate that took them far, far away from Ben’s love life as the rest of the break began to pass in relative ease. 

All he could hope for now was that Rey didn’t find his ‘heart’ eyes as obvious as everyone else seemed to. 

*

Rose and Paige were perhaps the only ones who didn’t really ask many questions. Sure, the younger Tico knew something was going on, but she hid this knowledge well, and Paige seemed to share this respect for their privacy, which prevented many a panic attack that they was somehow being found out. Especially on Rey’s part. Ben felt just comfortable enough that if someone found out what was going on, he wouldn’t be too hurt, but she wasn’t ready yet, and so a secret it had to remain.

It also helped that they were fooling around less on set these days. After all, it was the only foolproof way to avoid another incident like what had happened with Gwen. In the end, they managed to reduce their time together to their nights and rare days off. 

They had still not spent a full night together since that first night, though, and they had never spent a night in the same bed. It was a sort of unspoken rule that neither of them could discuss it, either, since they both knew that actually sharing a bed was shockingly intimate. Sure, he could make the excuse that they were just friends, but given that he knew well at that point that he was very much in love with her, would it really be believable? 

He really ought to have told her by now, but he was so fucking scared, he didn’t know where to begin. All he knew was that things were growing more intimate and sensual by the day, they were getting closer and closer, and soon enough, they’d cross that final threshold and give everything to each other. 

Every time he had that thought, it sent shivers down his spine. He’d started to feel lately as though they were counting down the days, as if they were barreling directly into some sort of inevitable, cosmic collision, and now there was only a week left until the scene was to be filmed. 

A nervous sort of excitement filled him as he shut the door to Rey’s apartment behind him, but he disguised it as laughter as he bent down, and picked her up, adrenaline flooding his veins as her giggles filled his ear, and she began pressing kisses to the side of his face, his heart pounding as he walked them through the apartment to her bedroom. It was a bit of a struggle, if he was being honest. She kept on kissing him everywhere, sometimes inhibiting his vision, but somehow he made it. 

“You are a nightmare,” he growled into her ear as he kicked the door closed, then began slowly walking toward the bed. 

“Mmm, what are you going to do with me?” she teased, kissing him on the lips as her nails raked against his scalp, sending a fresh wave of heat through his body.  _ Shit,  _ with a question like that, there was no telling how he was going to answer her, except he knew that answer involved getting her out of at least some of her clothes. 

Snickering quietly, he lowered her down onto the bed just quickly enough to cause her to yelp from shock, then he crawled over her with a smirk on his face, his hair hanging like a halo around him as he stared down at the woman beneath him. She was captivating like this, when her hair was splayed out on her pillow and she looked at him with hooded eyes. It was, quite possibly, one of his favorite memories to recreate again and again, and she seemed all too eager to participate.

“So many things,” he whispered, his hands slowly slipping down her body and toward the zipper of her skirt.  _ And thank god she was wearing a skirt that day _ . A skirt was a lot easier to take off than jeans. 

Humming contentedly, she kissed him again as his fingers slipped beneath the waistband of her underwear, and slowly began to slide those and the skirt down her thighs, then he began to pull away, his eyes finding hers as he pressed kisses to her jaw, her neck, her chest, and along the center of her abdominal muscles, pulling the fabric covering her lower half down as he went.

“Ben,” she breathed, her hands tangling themselves further in his hair as she kicked the offending fabric away, and he settled himself between her legs, taking them each in his hands before he rested her thighs over his shoulders. 

“You want to order in after this?” he asked, pressing a kiss to her inner thigh as he quirked an eyebrow. “Door Dash has one dollar delivery right now.”

“Are you seriously asking me if I want to get fucking Door Dash while your face is inches away from--?”

“Yeah, I’m multitasking,” he replied, pressing another kiss closer to the apex of her thighs. “So… You want some shitty fast-food french fries when this is over?”

“If I remember you asking me for french fries after this, I will say no,” she warned him, then she gasped softly as his tongue swept out from between his lips, and licked a firm stripe from her entrance to her clit. “ _ Oh, fuck…” _

Giving her one last sly grin, he pressed an open-mouthed kiss to her cunt, then her back arched off the mattress, and they found themselves slowly getting lost in each other as Ben forgot all about his offer of french fries. 

He had a completely different meal to focus on, and so he did. It wasn’t long before he was a man on a mission, determined and ready to make her come apart on his tongue, and within minutes, she was helplessly moaning his name, definitely having forgotten his question as she fought back the urge to grind her hips against his face. He could feel her fighting it, but as his nose brushed her clit, he wished she wouldn’t. 

Either way, she fell apart sooner than he could’ve predicted, his name falling from her lips again and again as she came, clutching his hair so tightly he was almost in pain, but it was worth it. Every single second of it was absolutely worth it. If he could spend his days making her come like that, he would. 

More laughter fell from his lips as he pulled away, the back of his hand wiping over his mouth as he started up into her hooded eyes, knowing her brain was absolute mush. 

What was she thinking about when she looked at him like that? It bothered him sometimes to not know as he began to crawl back over her, ready to kiss her senseless again as they melted into one another, and her hands began to reach for  _ his  _ pants this time.

*

Eventually, after he’d gone down on her for the second time, they seemed to decide they’d both made enough of a mess of her apartment to stop for the night--even though they’d technically stopped during dinner, but that didn’t really count given the way she’d stroked him to completion under her kitchen table. As a result, they were both breathless as he crawled over her a second time, still curious as to what Rey was thinking as he moved closer and closer, his lips forming a trail up from her thighs to her waist as--

“Will you stay tonight?”

Just as he started crawling over her waist, he froze. His dark eyes blinked up at hers, and for a fraction of a second, he could barely move, he was struggling so intensely with the sheer inability to comprehend what she was saying, but then he gathered himself, and swallowed nervously. “What?”

“Stay here, with me, tonight,” she repeated, stroking his hair as he crawled forward a few more inches, and rested his chin in the valley between her breasts. “You never do, and it’s kind of cold tonight, so… stay.”

Ben blinked at her for a few seconds, feeling as if he had completely shut down, like his brain had stopped working altogether. “You want me to stay… in here?”

“Yes, dumbass.” She laughed at him as his hands gripped her hips, and he suddenly found himself having to cling to them for support. As far as lifelines went, those were pretty great, he thought. “In my bed, I’m cold.”

“You’re sure?”

“Ben, you’ve just made me come twice, and I made you come during dinner. I think we can share a bed.”

Another flush colored his cheeks as his tongue came out to wet his lips again, and he slowly came to a decision before nodding. “We’re going to have to start leaving clothes at each other’s place, we can’t keep doing the walk of shame into work. Someone will notice.”

Rey grinned, then she covered herself with her blankets. “I was thinking about that, too,” she admitted, then she reached across the space between them, and rested a hand casually on his shoulder, causing his heart to start racing at double the pace. All of his focus became poured into maintaining a neutral expression as he tried to breathe, and listen to what she was saying. “It may just be easier until this scene is done.”

“It’ll be over in a week,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound as forlorn about that as he felt. He didn’t want this to be over yet. Being with Rey like this was one of his favorite experiences, and they’d never given it an expiration date, but he wagered if it had one, it would be when they filmed the scene, and that was in just a week. They were going to be done in just a week, and he… he didn’t want to be.

On top of that, there were still so many things they hadn’t done yet together, including things they did in their scene. If they stopped right after filming, he didn’t even want to think of how badly he would miss holding her like this, how much he would miss touching her bare skin, and as he looked into her eyes, he started to wonder if she felt the same way. She certainly seemed to enjoy it, her body reacted to his as if she was drawn like a magnet and his reacted in kind, That had to mean something, didn’t it?

“Do we want to stop after that?” he asked, whispering quietly as if he were afraid to let those words exist as so much as a thought in his head. 

“What?”

“After the scene. Do you…?”

“Not really.”

“Oh?”

“I’m having fun, Ben. A lot of fun. I don’t want that to go away because we finished this scene.” She shifted in the bed, propping her elbow upon the pillow and her head in her hand. “I’m enjoying this; learning with you. I think… I think it should stop when we’re ready, not because we set some deadline.”

He shifted onto his side as well, almost as if he were trying to match her. Maybe he was. He did find himself mirroring her frequently. “Yeah, I agree. I’m--I’m having a good time, too.”

Her lips twitched into a hint of a smile, then she cocked her head in the direction of her dresser. “I have a massive fucking pair of sweatpants hidden in the bottom drawer if you want to use them. They’ll be slightly less walk of shame-y in the morning.”

Snickering quietly, Ben crawled off of the bed, and made his way over to the dresser. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, no problem, but you’ll probably have to dig through a lot of underwear to find them,” she warned him, and-- _ fuck _ \--did that have him blushing again as he bent down to open the drawer. His face turned a brighter version of the shade crimson when he began to sift through what seemed like miles of lace fabric mixed with the occasional fun printed underwear, and one that simply said, “peach” on the butt. He got a laugh out of that, but both of them were bright red as he sifted through the fabric until he found the sweat-pants Rey had told him about. 

The first thing she saw when he pulled them out was the massive line of silver sequins on the ass that spelled out in capital letters, “Bootylicious,” which struck him as ironic given he had a self-admitted case of white boy butt. Still, he dropped them immediately, and fell to his knees clutching his gut as fits of laughter took him over. “Really?”

“Sorry,” she squeaked, covering her face as he began to undo the button of his jeans, preparing to switch out of the denim and into the bootylicious sweatpants anyway. “I forgot about that part.”

Shaking his head, Ben sighed dramatically. “Why do you even have these?”

“You’re not the only one who’s stolen a cast member’s property,” she told him, shrugging casually like it was nothing. “Poe doesn’t have the tightest security on his closet. I don’t even think it had a lock.”

“When--?”

“First season wrap party. He still hasn’t figured out who took them.”

“He’ll think it’s me if we walk onto set like this tomorrow,” he pointed out, then he shrugged. “I can just deal with the walk of shame. I don’t want to deal with Poe’s wrath.”

Rey hummed her assent as he finally put on the pants in question, then wolf-whistled at him as he shimmied a little to pull them over his hips, and the word, “Bootylicious,” glittered on his ass. “Great, now get in here, we’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.”

“So bossy,” he muttered, but he obeyed her command, lifting the covers before crawling into bed beside Rey with a hint of a smile starting to bloom on his face. “Are you going to put pants on?”

She simply gave him a wink before she turned over, and shut off the lamp on her bedside table. “Goodnight, Ben.”

He swallowed nervously at that, struggling to comprehend the fact that she was going to be sleeping beside him half-naked while his stupid Bootylicious pants prohibited him from actually touching her. Maybe that was a good thing, he was already losing his mind enough as it was. “G-goodnight, Rey.”

*

At some point in the night, Ben dreamt that he woke up to a warm and fuzzy feeling, as if he were being surrounded by an electric blanket. Not only that, but he felt  _ good _ , a distinct pleasure rushing through his body directly from his cock as he pressed against something slightly damp, his arms wrapping around another body as he slowly came into consciousness.

No, not just another body, Rey. He was holding Rey. She was in his arms, stirring a little bit against him like she was also waking up, but he supposed if this was just a dream, it probably wasn’t. 

Of course, everything still moved sluggishly, like he was in a dream, and he decided that maybe he was in one, a really  _ good  _ dream. This wasn’t so bad, he supposed. As far as dreams went, this was easily one of his favorites. 

Or it was until dream Rey attempted to slither out from under him. 

“Where are you going?” he asked sleepily, tightening his arms around her as he pulled her closer, and his voice became nothing more than a tiny little mumble as he began to drift off into sleep. “I love you.” 

It was so quiet he doubted dream Rey even notice it, but he was already starting to forget it, one dream fading into the next as he kept on mumbling so incoherently, even he wasn’t entirely sure that he understood it, but he didn’t care. All he wanted was for that dream to become real, for him to be holding Rey as he whispered sweet nothings to her. 

When he actually woke up a few hours later, he realized he really was holding her. This wasn’t entirely a dream, but he was still enjoying it, even if he was covered in a thin layer of sweat. Somehow, it was comfortable, and with the exception of his rather intense erection, he wanted to stay like this forever. 

Of course, that erection was becoming almost painful as the seconds began to pass, and he groaned as his arms tightened around Rey, pressing her against him as he groaned softly, his hips grinding against her as he sought sweet relief from the friction, and she hummed as he did so. 

At first, he froze, realizing he’d been caught, but then she slowly turned her head as they shuddered in unison, and he noticed for the first time that she was wet, and that nearly sent him over the edge as he pressed against her again, and she moaned from the contact. He thought he might’ve died from that, might’ve been taken into the sweet, sweet clutches of death, but then she gave him a new reason to live.

“Don’t be subtle,” she told him. “Please just… do it. Whatever you’re thinking… do it.” She then turned fully in his arms, the sheets becoming tangled around them in the process. “Do it.”

Ben was practically shaking as he nodded, then he scooped her up into his arms, pulling her on top of him as her legs spread out over his body, caging his hips between them. In the dim light, he could hardly see her face, but what little light there was caught her eye for half a second, passing like a fleeting shadow. It wasn’t enough for him to make out her face, but since he could hardly see her, his hands began ghosting up her sides, taking caution not to touch her in any way she didn’t want to be touched, even though he desperately wanted to touch her  _ everywhere. _

“Touch me,” she whispered, leaning down to his ear for a second. “God damn it, Ben, the sun will be up soon, we don’t have a lot of time.”

Ben’s breath caught from the shock, then he exhaled slowly, attempting to gain control of himself as his hands slowly ghosted over her breasts, his thumbs circling her nipples gently through the fabric of her shirt. “Shit, yeah, sorry, I just--I can’t see.” 

“Excuses, excuses,” she repeated to him, then she began to move her hips, grinding down against his erection as they both groaned from even the slightest release of pressure. “You don’t need your sense of sight to use your sense of touch.”

“Fuck. ” His hands then moved down, cupping her ass as he pulled her close against him, and slowly, steadily, a sweet friction was created between them. Every brush of her cunt against him, even through clothes, made his breathing come raggedly, like he was struggling to breathe, but instead of drowning, instead of slipping into oblivion, he found himself feeling impossibly alive. 

“We need to be faster than this,” he told her after a moment, noticing the sun was slowly starting to hue the gray sky in shades of purple. “We--”

“The only way either of us will come particularly quickly is if we do it ourselves,” she replied, then they both froze, realizing something at the same time. 

They could definitely do this themselves. It had been a while since the last time he’d masturbated with someone else in the room, but he was open to it if she was. Actually, he was open to doing anything with her as long as she gave him the all-clear, and he had a feeling she knew that, so he grinned, giving her a nod as the corners of her mouth tilted up.

Without saying a word, she rolled off of him, seeming giddy at the sound of Ben’s jubilant laughter as they both let their hands wander south. A few frustrated grunts escaped him as he struggle with the ties at the waistband of his sweatpants as he took his cock in his hand, and begin stroking it with a steady hand. 

Since he and Rey had started hooking up, he hadn’t really had cause to jerk off as much as he used to. The almost nightly sessions they seemed to be having replaced almost any need he had for it, and now his hand just wasn’t the same. Something about his hand was just not enough for him now that he knew what it felt like to come under her touch. Something wasn’t the same, and he had a feeling it never would be again. 

Listening to Rey, though, made it easier. Hearing the tiny little wet sounds of her fingers as they moved against her cunt and her soft little moans made getting off that much easier. He tune himself into it, into the sounds she made as the mattress shook beneath them, and they worked to get themselves off, and dawn’s light grew brighter and brighter by the second outside. 

Not that they noticed. Every sound they made sent him closer to the edge, and she whimpered his name as the friction on her clit increased, causing his entire body to shudder as he realized he was getting close. 

He was going to come, he was going to come with Rey in bed beside him, and he was going to hear her fall apart, too. 

“Fuck,” he breathed, his thumb swiping over his tip before he began stroking himself a little more vigorously. Her fingers seeme to move a little faster, too, her breathing coming out ragged like she was running a race, and they’d only seemingly just starte. 

A low moan escaped him, then he heard her fall over the edge, careening over it as gravity took its hold, and she came, gasping for air as she fell apart, gasping his name. It repeated itself over and over again like a broken record, but one he wanted to listen to anyway. He wanted to listen to nothing but that sound of her whimpering his name as if it was something holy, as if she were saying a prayer. 

He followed her shortly after, and his voice cracking as he said her name in turn, pitching sharply as warm ropes of come fell back against her bed sheets. She was probably going to have to wash them now, but he didn’t care, he was too lost in his own orgasmic bliss as he continued falling over the edge, listening to the sound of her doing the same. 

Then the sun rose, and an orange-pink light faded into the room, bathing them both in a warm hue as their heads turned to face one another, and he watched sweat glisten off of their exposed skin, his chest heaving as he looked at her, feeling almost as if he was drunk. Both of them were panting hard, both dizzy from what they’d just done, and as he looked into her eyes, a spell took over him. Ben wasn’t sure what made him do it, but his eyes drifte down to her lips, his heart still pounding hard in his chest as he shifted toward her. 

“What are you…?” She didn't get the words out. Before she could finish that sentence, he was kissing her softly, sweetly, like he had that night after their first rehearsal, and for that tiny little fraction of time, it felt real, like this wasn’t just sex , like it meant something more, and the way she was kissing him back…

Did she feel something too, or was she just caught off guard? Did she want this? Him kissing her without being prompted? 

He didn’t want to think about it, and so for a split second, he let his mind go blank as his body covered hers, cutting off the kiss shortly thereafter as he looked down at her, observing her kiss-flushed face in the low light of the rising sun. “Rey…” he whispered, and suddenly she froze beneath him. 

“We-we should get to work, shouldn’t we?” she asked, and suddenly he remembered the time, realizing that right then was precisely the wrong time to get lost in his feelings for her, to play pretend that they were a real couple.

He froze, then he swallowed nervously, and rolled away from her. “Yeah, we should get to work,” he replied, then he was pulling his sweatpants back up, and getting out of bed, hurriedly walking off into her bathroom as he tried to shake the dizziness of the kiss from his mind. 

His chest was still heaving as he shut the door behind them, thinking hard on how close he’d just come from revealing his deepest secret to her. They didn’t usually just kiss for the hell of it. He knew this. They weren’t in the type of relationship where he could just give her a casual, lazy kiss if he wanted to. Sure, they’d once made out on her couch for several hours, but making out could be totally platonic. 

That kiss didn’t feel platonic, he didn’t feel platonic about it at all. It felt like some sort of shift, like some big change had just occurred, and that shook him to his core. If Rey had been welcoming of a kiss like that, did it mean she was possibly interested in him in the way he wanted her to be? Did it mean the feelings he’d now developed for her weren’t just designed to make him suffer?

That was the one thing he didn’t know and wanted to above all others, but he didn’t have time to investigate it even if he could muster up the courage to. They had to be on set within the hour. Any of his problems, questions, or answers were going to have to wait until then, and it became clear to him that he was about to have an impossibly long day. 

And it would only get longer as time went on.


	7. Harder to Breathe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a brief mention of Ben's past relationship in this chapter. If that bothers you, don't read it. This is the warning.

Day two of filming the episode was honestly kind of miserable, especially given that Rey didn’t have to film anything that day and it was just Ben and his knights. It was him, Armitage, and Gwen for the most part, and his best friend was nowhere to be found. 

To be fair, though, she’d more than earned the break and they all had their days off. Still, he couldn’t help feeling lonely as he, Gwen, and Armitage sat back on their break, mostly talking but occasionally taking selfies to post to either Instagram or, in Ben’s case, to send something to Rey. 

They took maybe one serious picture before it all started to get plain goofy. In one picture, Gwen even flipped off the camera, causing both him and Armitage to laugh, but it still didn’t feel the same without Rey by his side. 

Once the middle finger picture was taken, his and Gwen’s costar elected to take a bathroom break, leaving him alone with an actress who was giving him that all-knowing eye of hers. 

“Don’t you say it,” he warned her, and she immediately burst into laughter. 

“Looks like I don’t have to,” she replied, gesturing to him. “You said it yourself.”

“Eat me.”

“Oh, come on, Ben, it’s cute. You miss her.” She took him by the shoulders, shaking him slightly as his features pinched in dismay. “She probably misses you too, you know.”

Ben snorted. “Yeah, right.”

“I’m serious.” Gwen’s hands stopped their shaking, then she sighed heavily. “Ben, whether it’s romantic or not, she loves you. You should tell her.”

Beside her, Ben’s shoulders tensed. “Not yet.”

As if she’d been issued some sort of challenge, Gwen began to cluck like a chicken, bawking loudly at him as the remaining cast and crew nearby began to give them looks. Flashes of heat rushed through his body as he looked down, avoiding both the eyes of the remaining crew and his costar. 

“Would you please stop that?” he asked after a few more seconds of chicken talk. 

Luckily, Gwen knew when not to push him, and so the clucking stopped with a small, but enthusiastic round of laughter that had her patting his shoulder yet again. “Oh, Solo, you’re hopeless, mate. Hopeless.”

“Thanks, Gwen,” he muttered, and just as she was telling him he was welcome, they watched Armitage make his way from the nearby bathroom, his hands combing through his hair in a way their hair stylist was not going to be happy about. “Let’s drop this, okay?”

“Whatever you say, Ben.”

And she dropped it, but he could still feel that lingering tension in the air that suggested as much as he was trying to forget about it and move on, they were both still thinking the same thing. 

*

Eventually, though, he was freed from the set. A part of Ben wished he could say he was calm when he left, that he actually waved goodbye and told people he’d see them again in the morning, but he knew that was a lie. 

He bolted from the set as soon as he was free from Kylo’s armor. In fact, he could even have said he took off like a shot he was walking so fast, seeming to move at a million miles an hour as he rushed out to the parking lot to his car. 

In his defense, he had a stop to make on the way over to Rey’s apartment. Since they’d agreed to start bringing clothes over to one another’s places, he figured he’d actually have to start doing so. That was a perfectly legal and valid reason to go ten over the speed limit on his way to his apartment, wasn’t it?

_ God,  _ he was so gone. He was head over fucking heels, and while a part of him was miserable with not knowing whether she felt the same or not, another part was enjoying this. Falling for someone was a number of things, including but not limited to terrifying, nerve-wracking, and most of all, exciting. 

He’d forgotten what that had felt like, but maybe that was because he’d never felt it on this scale before. 

Shaking those thoughts from his mind, he pulled into the parking lot in front of his apartment, his heart beating like a drum as he parked his car, then hopped out and ran as though he were the Flash to get to the elevator. Maybe he pressed the up button a little too hard and a time too many, but his entire body was jittery with anticipation. He couldn’t wait to see her, to hold her again, or to possibly fall apart under her touch. 

Every time they got together, he wondered how it would end. No two encounters were quite the same, but they always left him smiling and a little sex drunk by their end. 

When he finally got off the elevator, Ben had calmed down a little, perhaps all he’d needed was time. It was a good thing, too. In this condition, he wouldn’t be able to face Rey without her knowing  _ something  _ was up. 

The thought made him laugh as his hands fumbled with the keys a few times, then he burst into his apartment, burning off the last of his overexcited energy as he rushed into his bedroom, and began rifling through his dresser drawers. 

Grabbing hold of a few t-shirts and a pair of joggers, Ben shoved them into a nearby backpack, then ran from the apartment, barely remembering to lock the damn door on his way out as his last brain cell remained focused solely on Rey.  _ Fuck,  _ he was such a mess, he thought as he jammed his finger on the elevator’s down button. He wasn’t sure anymore how long he’d be able to keep up the illusion that his feelings were platonic, even if it meant he risked ruining the friendship. He didn’t want to do that, didn’t want to lose his best friend, but his heart was barely able to contain everything it felt for her, and that was the biggest part of his fucking struggle. 

Somehow, though, he managed. 

When he came knocking on her door that evening, Rey had a stupidly big smile on her face when she opened the door for him. “Hey,” she said, sounding as casual as he hoped he looked as he walked inside, his left hand gripping the small backpack full of clothes he’d brought with him. “What’s that?”

“The clothes I’m going to be leaving here to avoid a walk of shame in the mornings.” He gave her a proud and probably cocky grin. “Hope that’s okay.”

She gave him a small laugh as she let him pass by, then he set his bags down, and they made his way into the kitchen where she picked up a wooden spoon, and stirred what looked like gloriously golden macaroni in the pot.  _ Fuck,  _ he was hungry, he realized. He needed this, he needed Mac and cheese even if it came from a fucking box. Well, that and possibly anything else he could get his hands on.

“I didn’t exactly make anything gourmet tonight,” she warned him, pointing to the pasta she was stirring with one of the fingers of the hand gripping the pot handle as he walked over to her pantry. 

Ben shrugged as he began rifling through her food. “Mac and cheese? It’s a classic. Who needs gourmet when you have this shit?”

Rey rolled her eyes as she turned off the burner, and brought the pasta over to the sink to strain it. “How was work?”

“Boring.” He grabbed a bag of Lay’s chips—salt and vinegar, which wouldn’t go with the cheesy macaroni flavor, but he didn’t give a shit—from her shelves of food, and pulled it open as he sat on the other side of the counter from her, the corners of his mouth pulled up into a sheepish grin as he looked down at his chips. “We just filmed some knight stuff, you know?”

“You usually love the knight stuff,” she replied, then she dumped the pasta back into the pot, and began making the cheese sauce. “What happened?”

He shrugged. “It just… it didn’t feel the same today.” That smile on his face fell just a little bit, then he plopped a chip into his mouth, knowing that if he said anything else, he’d give away all of his secrets, and the conversation fell silent for a moment. 

After a few minutes, she gripped the wooden spoon she was using to stir a little more tightly as he watched an idea light up behind her eyes. “Ben, how’d you…?” She paused, suddenly seeming insecure in her question. “How did you lose your um…?”

He popped in another chip, then he laughed as he recalled the memory, ignoring the pinch of curiosity he felt at her having asked it in the first place. “How’d I lose my virginity?”

“Yeah, what made you realize you wanted to take that leap?” she asked, then she turned around, crossing her arms over her chest. “Cause I’ve been… I-I’m not ready, but I’ve been thinking about it.”

Shifting in his seat, Ben met her gaze, but he wasn’t looking at her—no, he was looking into the past, into a time when he’d been younger, more shy, less outgoing, and stupidly, insanely in love. It was good for a while, he thought. He and Tai had been excellent first lovers, even if it had been hard because it was 2012 and homophobia—though still a massive problem in 2019—was running rampant. The harassment never got to them, though, they’d had each other, and for two years, they made it work. 

He wasn’t sure why the spark died with Tai or which one of them fell out of love first, but given that they still could talk to each other off and on and both spoke fondly of the other person, he thought maybe it hadn’t ended so badly. They were first loves, and always would be, but he supposed they weren’t soulmates, and that was fine. 

He’d certainly moved on by now. 

The corner of his mouth twitched up, and for half a second he was smirking as he laced his fingers together, leaning on his elbows over the table as he looked at her. “I mean, I was with my first serious partner. He was… someone I loved at the time and we were alone at his place after a long day he’d spent filming and then we just started talking, then kissing, then we just—we just knew.” 

“I just,.. I think I’ll have that moment soon. I don’t think I’m there yet, but… I wanted to be sure.”

He stared curiously at her for a couple of seconds, then he let go of his own hand, and reached out for hers. “Come here.”

Swallowing, Rey went to him, letting her best friend take her hand in his as she watched him run his thumb over the back of her knuckles. “Why?”

“Because I want to make sure that you’re not having any sort of crisis just because the scene is coming up,” he told her, squeezing her hand a little more tightly as he spoke. “You don’t need to have sex to do this—well, more than you’re already having—no one will notice; you’ve been doing fantastically in the rehearsals.”

“ Fuck the scene,” she muttered, leaning against her counter as she met his gaze. 

“What?”

“Fuck the scene. I don’t care about it. Maybe that’s how it started, but we agreed to keep going after it was over, didn’t we?” Shifting her position, she let go of his hand to put hers on the counter. “I just wanted to know. I promise. I’m not putting any deadlines on this.”

Another few seconds of silence passed between them, then he slowly nodded as he leaned back in his chair. “Okay. I just… I wanted to be sure.”

“I get that.”

“Are you sure you want it to be me, though? When it happens? You don’t want to wait for someone else?” He could feel the fear and hope in his voice, and for a moment, he wondered if she could sense it, too. Her mouth opened and closed a few times, almost as if she couldn’t decide what to say. 

“I-I y-yes I want it-I want it to be you.” 

_ Holy shit. _

“I just… this is a serious thi—“

Her eyes rolled again, then she took his stupid face in her hands, and forced him to look into her eyes. “I want it to be you,” she told him, annunciating every single word so that there was no mistaking her intent. “I don’t want it to be someone else. Not right now. Just you. Okay?”

“Okay,” he said, then they both pulled back, and she turned around to pay attention to her neglected macaroni. 

“So, you want more cheese or less cheese?” 

Ben smiled. “More cheese,” he said, then she turned around, and poured even more cheese into the mix before stirring her little concoction once more around the pot. The entire time she finished their meals, his eyes remained on her back, watching her with hope as she put the noodles into two bowls, then he was smiling at her again as they commenced a feast.

*

The next day was his day off, and so when he woke up in bed next to her the next day, he allowed himself the time to hold her close as she continued to sleep. According to the time on his phone, her alarm was going off in five minutes, which meant he had three hundred seconds to hold her like he always wanted to, to pretend that this meant something more. 

Feeling content, Ben began to gently stroke his fingers up and down the expanse of her upper arm, his fingers grazing the skin delicately where it lay over his chest. She stirred slightly in her sleep, humming quietly as she exhaled deeply, causing Ben to sigh in amusement as she nuzzled her face in his shoulder. 

This was perfection, he thought. It was pure, complete perfection. This made him feel as if he was floating on cloud nine, and— _ dear god _ —how much longer was he going to last like this? He had a feeling he wasn’t. Someday soon the truth was going to erupt from him like a volcano. 

He could only hope that the explosion wouldn’t cause irreparable damage. 

The alarm went off before he was ready. A full body groan escaping them both as Rey turned over, and cut it off, barely seeming to notice that she’d woken up in his arms as she rolled over onto her back, and grunted her dismay. 

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Ben said, causing her to turn over again just to smack him on the chest. 

“Fuck off.”

“Love you, too.”

“I don’t want to go to work today,” she mumbled, but she reached over and turned on her bedside lamp anyway, knowing damn well that she had to. They couldn’t just lay in bed all day even if it was what they both desperately wanted. Platonic or not. “I want to stay here and pig out on macaroni and cheese with you.”

“Oh, that sounds like heaven.”

“Doesn’t it?”

“I think we both have a day off next week. Should we do it then?”

“It’s a date,” she said, then there was a brief moment of silence before they laughed nervously, and the conversation moved on. “I should get up though.”

Disappointment filled him as she did exactly that, but he wasn’t complaining much as she threw back the sheets, and stood with her back facing him, offering her costar a lovely view of her pert ass as she walked into her bathroom. He hated to see her leave, but  _ damn,  _ did he love to watch her go. Especially when she wore underwear like that which exposed the majority of each cheek. 

Rey’s ass, he was realizing, would soon become the death of him. What a way to go.

Eventually, she emerged from the bathroom looking freshly showered and dressed in a casual set of leggings and a white t-shirt, one of her leather jackets hanging casually around her shoulders as she gripped her keys tightly in one hand. “Okay, I’m going to see myself out. I trust you can lock up with the spare?”

“Of course,” he replied, starting to sit up and get ready to depart the bed himself. Just because she was giving him permission to be alone by himself in her apartment didn’t mean he should spend the entire day alone in her bed. That would be a little weird—and intimate. 

“I’ll see you later,” she told him, then she paused, looking down at him as she leaned forward ever so slightly. For a moment, he thought she was going to kiss him, but then she seemed to think better of it, and backed away, pink coloring her cheeks as she walked out of the room, leaving him speechless in her wake. 

*

That night, Rey went to  _ his _ apartment with a bag full of  _ her _ things, which was thrilling, but slightly uneventful. They didn’t do much that night, it was more so some half-asleep fondling and light giggles until he slowly slipped into a deep sleep. 

Or rather, he did until he woke up in the middle of the night. He couldn’t explain it, but somehow he knew she was awake, too. Not only was she awake, but her eyes were open. He could feel her staring at him, and he struggled to keep his breathing even as he felt her reach out, and place a hand on his cheek, his breath ghosting over her wrist. 

He didn’t shift at all, and somehow his breathing remained even, which became a struggle as she shifted her hand back into his hair, tangling the silky black waves between her fingers as she stared at him, and his mind when crazy trying to figure out what she meant. 

What did it mean? Why was she touching him like that? That couldn’t be platonic, right? 

A puzzle piece was starting to fall into place, but he knew he couldn’t address this head on. She couldn’t know he’d caught her while he was supposedly sleeping, and he didn’t know what he’d say to her in the first place. 

How had they gotten here? From their very first kiss as Ben and Rey rather than Kylo and Kira, things had been changing between them. Somehow, in spite of his feelings, he was more comfortable around her, finding that being in her space was easy like breathing. 

Everything about her and being with her felt right. He thought back to the evening before when he’d been pondering over his ex. He’d thought about how Tai hadn’t been the person he was destined to be with, but was it possible Rey was?

Oh, he was so screwed. Completely, utterly screwed. He was head over heels in love with her now, and starting to think it was possible that she was his soulmate, but if she wasn’t? If he was wrong?

Their perfect friendship was ruined. 

He needed to stop thinking about that possibility and start focusing on the present, what they were doing and just start be enjoying it. 

*

The next day went fairly normally. They spent their lunch break in her trailer rehearsing the scene they were about to film one last time like they usually did. This was just going to be a kissing scene, something they’d done a dozen times by now, but both of them were perfectionists. 

They wanted this kiss—Kylo and Kira’s last before they gave themselves to each other—to be absolutely perfect. 

At the present moment, they were looking into one another’s eyes, and Ben was holding her face in his hands, their faces mere inches apart. Rey’s breath was ghosting over his lips, and he—as Kylo—wanted desperately to kiss her. Hell, Ben wanted to kiss her, too, but she didn’t need to know that. 

“I have to go,” she told him, her lips nearly upon his. “They’ll become suspicious if I’m not back soon.”

Kylo sighed. “But you’ll meet me tonight?”

Kira gave him a nod. “I promise.”

Then softly, tenderly, with so much emotion he was having trouble fathoming that it wasn’t real, his lower lip trembled, and he took in a deep breath before telling her, “I love you.” Then he brushed a piece of her hair behind her ear. 

“I love you t—” she started, but he couldn’t take it anymore, the anticipation was killing him, and so he cut her off, kissing her breathless as he stepped closer, pressing their bodies together as he began to move his lips against hers. 

God, this was so different from how they usually kissed. The whole desperate, fleeting dance between Kylo and Kira wasn’t like the heated easiness of kisses he shared with Rey, and it never had been. It was unmistakably two different people kissing, but there was still something about it that filled her entire body with heat. 

Like kissing his best friend, it held a raw vulnerability that neither of them could truly fake. Over the weeks since they’d started this whole thing, they’d let their real life kisses slowly influence their onscreen kisses until he was starting to struggle to tell the difference between them. Either way, he didn’t mind. The kissing felt wonderful, and even though his lungs were starving for oxygen, it was as easy as breathing. 

They broke away, then broke character within the same three seconds, and Rey blinked slowly, hesitantly at him, seeming unsure of what to say in the aftermath. 

Ben wasn’t exactly sure of what to say either, his mouth kept opening and closing, almost as if he were a fish out of water. “Th-That… That, that—that was good,” he said after a while, placing his hands on his hips as he nodded to himself, trying to sound more casual than he felt. 

All that earned him was a smirk of amusement, but it was a very cute smirk. 

“Those your thoughts, Ben? Very deep, so philosophical,” she teased him, shoving lightly at his shoulder. “The Greeks have nothing on you.”

Crimson spread across his cheeks, then he hung his head down, raven waves falling limply into his eyes as embarrassment flooded his face. “I just—I don’t know. It was a good kiss.” 

“It was. The fans are going to lose their minds.”

“Oh, I’m sure they are. Especially if they ever find out what we’ve been up to behind the scenes,” she reminded him, though when it came to the public finding out about them, that was a terrifying idea. He knew how the media already treated them. They’d been fending off dating rumors pretty much from the moment they’d met. If people found out they were so much as friends with benefits? They’d never hear the end of it. 

He almost didn’t want to think about what would happen if they actually started dating, how little privacy they’d have then. 

Ben shivered, then he stepped closer to her again, his hand briefly swaying in front of him as it yearned to reach for hers, but he thought better of it midway through. “Do we ever want them to know?”

“It’s not like we’re actually dating, they don’t need to know we’re friends with benefits,” she replied casually, also looking down, disappointment filling him as she kicked at the ground. With that, the conversation was now dancing around something dangerous, and he definitely wasn’t ready to talk about the romance thing with her. “Um… speaking of, there was something I wanted to ask you.”

His eyes darted between hers as she looked up, catching his expression just as it shifted from mild disappointment to intrigue. “Oh?”

“I’ve been thinking a lot about what you’ve been doing for me lately,” she said, closing her eyes as if imagining something. “I… I wanted to return the favor.”

“What favor?”

“You know what, I’m just going to come out and say it,” she told him, then she reached out, her hands gripping his waist before sliding down to the waistband of his costume trousers, and using that to tug him closer as he gasped from shock. “I want to go down on you the way you went down on me. I want you to shout my name, I want you to come in my mouth, and I—I want to hear every filthy little noise your mouth is capable of making.”

_ Holy  _ fuck **_._ **

Her eyes opened after he fell silent for a few seconds, and she seemed to fill with immense satisfaction at the look on his face. Odds were, he looked like an overexcited puppy, but she seemed happy to see it. “Are-are you sure?”

A small laugh escaped her as her fingers shifted beneath his waistband until they were right over the laces of his trousers—where a sizable erection had already started forming just from talking about her sucking his cock—as she stepped closer. “More than ever.” 

Realization dawned, and his eyes went wider than he’d known they were capable of. He exhaled slowly, her name falling from his lips as she continued undoing the laces. “Ri-right now?”

“Right now,” she answered him, then she finished untying the laces, and reached for the edge of his waistband again. “Unless you don’t want me to.”

“No, I-I want you to,” he said breathlessly, sounding almost as if he’d run a marathon. “Rey—”

She didn’t let him finish whatever he was going to say. Instead, she cut him off with a kiss, reaching up with one hand while still gripping his waistband in the other to wrap her fingers around the back of his neck and pull him down to her before he could start talking. 

There it was. That was how they properly kissed; heated but not starving, intense but not fleeting. Rey took her time, her tongue sweeping along the edge of Ben’s lower lip before she pulled him closer against her, and let her fingers start tugging down his trousers. Luckily, she wasn’t entirely helpless in that endeavor; he’d decided he’d help her, too. 

He tugged on the fabric of both his trousers and underthings until his cock was free from its confines, then before he could do anything else, Rey broke away from kissing his lips, panting hard as she cocked her head in the direction of her sofa. Without saying a word, Ben sat down on it, even spreading his legs for her as she stepped between them, nudging them further apart with one of her own. He was going to die, this was death. Not Rey’s ass, but her mouth on his fucking cock. That would kill him. It absolutely would destroy him. 

She swallowed, interrupting his thoughts as she looked down at the ground before she got on her knees in front of him. He watched her the entire time, unable to comprehend that this was real, that it wasn’t just some beautiful dream. Someone needed to pinch him.

But he didn’t want to wake up. 

Both of them still breathing heavily, she kept her eyes on him as she reached out, and took his cock in one hand, stroking him slowly, experimentally a few times as his chest shuddered with each intake of air. 

Immediately, pure ecstasy rushed through his entire body, his breath leaving him in a sigh as she began stroking him like she had all those weeks ago when they’d first attempted trailer sex. This, though, this felt different. This time, it would end in something else entirely. “R-Rey,” he whispered, then her thumb glided over his tip, and did it again before low moan came from deep within his throat. 

He was struggling to focus, fighting off the urge to melt into the sofa and let the feelings she was bringing him take him out to sea, but he was managing somehow. He was still holding on to one last, tiny shred of reality, and just looking at her face made him certain that she was determined to make him let go. 

His words from the scene they’d be filming in just a few days crossed his mind;  _ you’re still holding on _ , he’d said to her. Well, Kylo had said it to Kira a few times by now, but the point still stood. He was holding on, and he needed to… 

Rey placed a kiss on his inner thigh, continuing to stroke his cock as she did so. Ben’s breathing continued to remain scattered and uneven, growing even more so as she planted another kiss a little closer to his base. She, however, appeared to lack the patience for teasing that he had. Unlike what he’d done with her, she didn’t spend forever pressing teasing, torturous little kisses on the insides of his thighs. 

They didn’t have much time left, after all, they had to be out on that set kissing in about twenty minutes. Oh god, he was going to taste himself on her tongue while they were filming, too, wasn’t he?

He watched as she closed her eyes, then she leaned forward, and guided his tip to her mouth, her tongue dragging along the edge of it at an agonizingly slow pace before she took him into her mouth. Waves of sheer bliss passed through him. Even when she reached her limit and used the hand still at his base to begin stroking what she couldn’t reach, he felt nothing but pleasure. As she moved back up, it became clear to him that she was a natural at this, like all things. Sure, her teeth accidentally grazed his shaft a time or two, but he forgot about that when her eyes drifted to meet his, and a choked gasp escaped him.

That was, perhaps, the sexiest thing he’d ever seen—Rey, on her knees in front of him, one hand on his cock, the other on his thigh, and her mouth wrapped around him as she looked up into his eyes. 

He was watching her attentively, his eyes locking onto hers for half a second as she came up, and swirled her tongue around his tip. At this, his lower lip trembled, shaking as she went back down, her mouth descending on his cock as he moaned her name. No, he fucking  _ whimpered  _ her name, as if he were begging, pleading for more but had forgotten all English or any word in general except for her name. 

As if on command, as if she’d somehow understood that whimper, Rey began to properly suck his cock, cheeks hollowing as Ben’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he leaned back against the top of the sofa as incoherent swears left his mouth. Even he couldn’t understand all of them, but he could quite clearly hear, “oh, fuck, fuck, fuck… ” between every other breath. 

It felt like the most intense struggle of his life, and he very quickly found himself fighting the urge to buck his hips into her mouth and fuck her throat properly. She seemed to feel it, too in those tiny little twitches of his body beneath her as her head bobbed up and down along the length of him, and so she placed a hand on one of his thighs, holding him down as he slowly lost control. 

His hands came up from where they rested at his sides, previously having been clenched in tight little fists on the sofa, and gently took her hair into their clutches, holding her close against him as her cheeks hollowed once more. “G-god, Rey,” he breathed, panting heavily as she began to move a little faster. “ Fuck. ”

She hummed around his cock, which only drew out another low, sensual noise from his throat as he tried to fight off the inevitable. He had to come, she was going to make him come, and as if on cue she let out another soft moan around him, drawing out the sound for a few seconds longer than was probably necessary as he gasped sharply. 

“Rey, I’m gonna come,” he warned her as his hips bucked ever so slightly, and and suddenly he came in her mouth, crying out her name as he completely fell apart. Well, her name and other nonsensical words he couldn’t make out, but they didn’t matter over the high he was riding. He never wanted to come back down. He wanted to bathe in this moment, to exist in a tiny infinity that was composed only of this.

As his orgasm began to fade, he watched her swallow his come as his chest heaved, and he looked at her from behind flushed cheeks and hooded eyes, still in some kind of a daze. 

Like he had when he’d gone down on her, Rey shifted up when she pulled off of him, wrapping a hand around the base of his neck to pull him down to her in a deep kiss, and he could taste himself on her tongue. Another soft little moan escaped him against her lips at the realization, and she leaned forward, pressing him further back into the sofa as their lips began to move together, taking their time to explore one another anew in the aftermath of what they’d just done. 

Rey, however, became breathless, and broke away from the kiss, breath coming far too quickly as she searched his eyes for the answers to the questions she’d been asking the entire time they’d been together that afternoon. 

As their eyes met, he swallowed dryly, and he knew she had her answers. He felt the same way she had, and it felt  _ good _ . “Y-you sure you’ve never done that?”

“I might’ve gotten some advice.”

“Please tell me it wasn’t from Poe.”

“No,” she replied with a laugh as he pulled his pants back up, concealing his cock from view. “Someone else.”

He laughed as she shifted closer between his legs, rising up so that she was almost eye to eye with him. “Who?”

“Let’s just say on your day off, Gwen deep-throated a fucking banana.” 

Ben paused, then he burst into laughter, tears springing to his eyes as he fell back against the sofa once more, and his whole body began to tremble for a completely different reason than it had a few seconds ago at the mental image. At some point, Rey stepped back from her place between his legs, but as she stood up, she too let loose a few giggles at the memory of Gwen and her fucking banana. 

Eventually, they both managed to calm down, and Ben looked up at her with a glint of humor in his eye as he too stood up, and put his hands on his hips. “Ready to go? I have a feeling they’ll be knocking any second now if we don’t leave.”

“Yeah, I’m ready,” she told him, then she stepped back, and together, the two of them made their way out of the trailer and back onto the set.

That day, they were working with a part of the set that had been designed to look like a forest. Specifically, it was the forest between the two kingdoms of Alderaan and Mustafar, filled with pine trees and moss covered ground that quieted the footsteps of knights—which was particularly useful for two knights on opposing sides having a quick rendezvous—as they passed through. 

The camera crew was already prepared to go when they got there, and the episode director gave them both a nod before summoning them over. As they approached the main part of the set, Rey looked up at him, a hint of anxiety in her eye, but then he gave her a tiny smile, the corners of his mouth tugging upward as they weaved between the trees, and as she smiled back, he knew that emotion passed like a fleeting shadow. 

He hoped she was all right. Whatever it was that bothered her, she knew she could come to him, right? They told each other everything, after all. Well, everything except for his burgeoning feelings for her. That would have to stay quiet. 

As they took their places in front of the cameras, both positioned behind trees as they’d been in rehearsals, he forced himself to stop worrying. Rey was fine. She had to be fine. She would tell him if something was wrong, it was probably just nerves. 

Soon enough, it was time for them to get in character, and all traces of worry vanished from them both as they stood in front of the cameras, and waited patiently for their next commands. They could deal with their emotions later, and he would be there for her as soon as she needed him, but that would have to wait until their next round of pillow talk. 

The director shouted, “Action!” and they had roles to play, so they played them. 

Kira stepped out from behind a tree ahead of him, pulled a dagger out from the inside of the cloak she wore, and began to search the woods for Kylo. The lovers’ forbidden meeting beginning beneath fake moonlight as the hours passed in a blur. 


	8. Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter count went up! I honestly thought it would from the beginning but wanted to see if I could do ten chapters. Alas. So now there’s more of this. This chapter is pretty damn similar to the version in the original fic, but given that this is about 600 words longer something definitely changed.

Before he knew it, it was two days before they were due to film the scene. Time had passed far too quickly, in his opinion, and now it was nearly upon them. 

He kept dreaming about it, too. All of his dreams were haunted by her. In his dreams, she was beneath him, sometimes on top of him, and they were writhing against each other, breathy moans and sharp gasps mixing with whispers of the other person’s name as they barely held themselves together. He always woke up before they could fall apart, but still, his dreams remained the same. 

The day before they were set to film the scene, he woke up from one such dream to Rey fidgeting restlessly in his arms, and without a moment’s hesitation, his arms flexed beneath her, and one came up to wrap around her waist as he groaned softly upon waking, wondering what was bothering her this time and how he could help. “Rey?” His voice was raspy from sleep, and with the deep undertone it always carried, and he winced before he realized she had shivered at the sound of it.  _ Oh _ . 

“Hi,” she replied quietly. “Sorry I woke you up.”

“No, it’s fine.” He cleared his throat, then he pulled her a little closer. “You okay?”

Another deep, quiet breath. “Fine, I’m just--I’m just worried again. It’s stupid.” She buried her face in his chest. “I thought I’d gotten over any fear I had about this scene. I was wrong.”

Ben’s breathing shuddered his fingers stroking her arm as soft and soothingly as he was capable of. “Do you not want to do it?” A fresh wave of fear filled him at the thought, making him worry that maybe she would want to stop this altogether, and he wasn’t quite ready to end these near nightly cuddles just yet. 

Bless his luck, she was quick to rest a hand on his arm, squeezing his bicep as she held him close. “I do. I think… it’s just been a minute since our last rehearsal and I want… I want to be sure it’s perfect.”

“We don’t have anymore rehearsals scheduled, Rey.”

“I know that, but I… I wish we did.”

He fell silent for a moment, then his arms tightened around her and—because he couldn’t help himself—he pressed a tiny kiss to the top of her head. “Do you want to practice it again? We could do it on our own.”

He wasn’t sure when or where, since they couldn’t exactly rehearse in the little space of her apartment. With that in mind, where would they go? It was a good idea, they’d just have to work out the logistics by that night. Time was far from unlimited with just over twenty four hours remaining until the scene would be filmed. “Yeah, that’d be great.”

“You’re going to be amazing, I promise.” 

She hummed a response as one of his hands came up, and he began stroking her hair, and he watched her eyes close involuntarily as her whole body went limp against his. It felt nice, being here like this; enjoying one another’s company as they sat there and held each other close. 

He wondered how this made her feel, if she felt as at peace and calm and easy as he did. Perhaps the best thing about what he was doing with Rey was how calm he felt. Sometimes, with how stressful their jobs could get, he would experience periods of overwhelming anxiety, and he knew she did, too. In the weeks since they’d begun sleeping together, though, the amount of panic attacks they had talked about had fallen to…  _ none.  _

Huh. They’d both been more at peace since this started. Maybe being in love had an impact on his psyche and being around that energy helped her somehow? He didn’t know, he was an actor not a psychologist. He didn’t know how that stuff worked. 

She smiled as she looked at him, he could see it in the dim light, and  _ hell,  _ if it wasn’t the most enchanting thing he’d ever seen. “So are you,” she said, then she cleared her throat. “Where are we rehearsing, then?”

A smirk grew on his face, an idea blossoming in his head as he looked at her, thinking of their characters, the scenery and the set, and realizing there was already a rehearsal space available for them. They went there everyday. All he had to do was get them there when no one else was around. “You know, no one checks to make sure the third rear stage door is locked at night. They’re supposed to, but I got to talking to the guy who does security? They don’t.”

Her breathing came a little quicker, and he had to fight the urge not to laugh like an asshole. “What are you saying?”

“What do you say we sneak back onto set after hours and have one last rehearsal in the temple? You know, for authenticity?” His voice dropped low, and he tried not to read too much into how hooded her eyes got in response, the way they flickered right to his lips. 

“Sneak on set?”

“Yeah, no one’s around at night. We’d be free to do anything we wanted,” he told her, then the hand stroking her hair paused. “Unless you’d rather do it somewhere else.”

Rey shrugged, and within seconds, his eyes were on her lips as they began to move. “The set is fine. I think I need that anyway.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s perfect. Let’s go get dinner tonight and come back after everyone is gone.” She gave him another nod, then his fingers continued combing through the brunette strands of her hair as his muscles relaxed. They were both on the same page, weren’t they?

Exhaling, Ben leaned his chin against the crown of her head, and they fell quiet for a few more seconds. “So tonight… we get on set, grab the the mat, and we’ll have one more rehearsal, and then…”

“We’ll be ready,” she finished for him, then she splayed out her palm on his chest, forcing him to try and steady his breathing as she felt his heart beating beneath his rib cage. He knew he was failing, knew that she could feel how hard it was racing, but still, he didn’t want her to know. 

It was getting hard, impossibly so, to deny his feelings, and one of these days, he knew he was going to have to tell her, but he didn’t want to risk it, not yet, not while he still had a little bit of doubt that she felt the same. The time was coming, but not yet. Even if she did have feelings for him, she might not have been ready to admit it. He didn’t want to force her to admit anything she wasn’t prepared to admit. The timing had to be  _ perfect.  _

Rey meant everything to him. Anything that would risk losing her friendship, her love, no matter what sort of love she felt for him, he wouldn’t try it. 

“Your heart is beating really fast,” she whispered, then he laughed nervously, his heart beating just a touch faster in response. 

_ Traitor,  _ he thought to the organ at the center of his chest. Shuddering beneath her, Ben swallowed. “The thought of committing crime ails my fragile heart.” Another laugh fell free, then he focused again on his breathing. “I’m fine, I just… I don’t know, I think I need this as much as you do.”

Rey patted his chest. “Why are you nervous, though? You’ve done this before?”

_ Because I’m helplessly in love with you, and you don’t know how much it will break me if you don’t feel the same and I lose you.  _ He thought as his heartbeat picked up again. “I-I don’t know. I-I just am. Faking sex for a camera—it’s kind of a nerve wracking thing no matter how many times you do it. You’re vulnerable, you know? And there’s so many people, forgetting they’re there is hard sometimes.”

“So the fear is normal?”

“The fear is normal,” he assured her, then he kissed the top of her head again, renewed calm filling him as the truth poured from his lips. It was normal to be afraid. In a way, this was a first time for him, too. Just because he had experience, didn’t mean sex couldn’t make him nervous. That was just human. “You’re going to be great, I promise, but we should probably get some more sleep if we’re going to stay out late tonight.”

“Mmm, true,” she replied, then her body went limp against him. “Good night, Ben.”

“Good night, Rey.”

Then without another word, he watched her eyes drift shut, falling asleep to the quiet sound of Ben’s breathing, the steady rise and fall of his chest, and the feeling of safety that wrapped around her like a second blanket as she held him close, and slowly succumbed to sleep. 

*

When they finally got around to filming later on, he was much more relaxed than he thought he’d be. That day on set went by with relative ease. Even Rey seemed much more stress free and casual than usual, and he found himself standing taller, his shoulders held back as confidence filled him. They would get through it, and they would come out victorious. Of that much he was certain. 

The hours passed like minutes. Everything seemed to be on fast forward, like each minute was shorter than the last until suddenly it was time to go home and get some sleep before the next day of work. At least, that’s what it would be for everyone else. For Ben and Rey, the second Poe announced that they’d wrapped for the day, they knew it was far from over. 

It had only just begun. 

Together, they got into Ben’s car, and drove to the McDonald’s across the street, grabbing Big Macs as fuel for the long night they were going to have before they sat together in the parking lot facing the studio, and watched closely as the cars of their coworkers left one after another. It was almost like they were on a stakeout from some spy movie or action drama, as if they were doing some important mission. All they were doing in reality, though, was waiting for everyone to leave so they could pretend to have sex. 

Or maybe they would for real. He had bought condoms a few days earlier, knowing this day was probably coming soon. He even had them stashed in his trailer just in case they had another moment on set. He never knew when they’d be needed. 

Looking at her then, he felt a little flutter in his chest when he caught sight of the excited little smile on his face. It was cute when he could see her dimples—she was cute.  _ So cute.  _ At the moment, she was shaking as she took bites of her food, but it wasn’t fear, she looked almost giddy, and he found himself wondering why. 

“What are you thinking about?”

“This is kind of awesome, isn’t it?” she asked, speaking much faster than normal so that every word seemed to blend into the next. “It’s like we’re on one of those crime shows or a James Bond film. We’re on a stakeout, Ben, a good and proper stakeout, eating McDonald’s and whispering quietly and everything. I feel kind of epic.”

He snorted his amusement, then shoved another fry into his mouth, letting loose a moan that bordered on obscene as she watched him. He could hear her swallow in response, but if she reacted in any other way he didn’t notice. “Mmm, you’re right, this is kind of cool.” He ate another fry, a second fucking moan leaving him in the process. “God, I’d forgotten how good these shitty fucking fries taste. I needed this.”

“Don’t get too lost in the fries, Ben, the mission is afoot—or whatever Sherlock says.”

“The game is on?”

“No I think it’s the game is afoot, I’m not sure I never read or watched any of it,” she admitted. “But I think only Poe and Charles are still there so…” They watched as a burnt orange car strolled lazily out of the stage parking lot, another one following shortly after, and then they were alone. It was time. They could go inside the stage door and have their rehearsal. 

They hadn’t moved, but somehow, with that realization, the atmosphere of the room shifted. There was a subtle change that suddenly made the air feel rife with tension, and a sense of anticipation filled him as he looked at her in the aftermath, knowing something was coming but not knowing what. It was exciting and scary all in one, but where was this leading?

“We can go,” she said, and he felt his mouth shift before he gave her a nod, and reached over to turn the keys in the ignition, setting down his orgasmic moan inducing fries in the process. 

“We can go,” he repeated, then he set the car into reverse, and pulled them out of the space, never bothering to put on their headlights as they drove across the street back to the studio. They had a secret to keep, didn’t they? He didn’t want anyone coming back because they forgot something catching them.

The drive was impossibly short, but with how much anticipation was in the air, it felt as if years had passed in that little drive between the McDonald’s and the studio. Ben parked them right outside the back door of the studio, shutting off the car shortly thereafter before he turned to look at her. Both of them breathed a touch too heavily for a few seconds, and it occurred to him that she too had been feeling that same sense of anticipation that he’d gotten. Something big was in the air, coming around the corner, and any minute now, it was going to show its face. 

He wasn’t sure, but he was starting to think this would be it. They’d taken so many steps already, but this? This might have just been their last leap over the edge, and his body—and his cock—were twitching in those moments of  _ before.  _

“You ready?” he asked, holding out his hand in the space between them. 

A tiny smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, then she took his hand, lacing her fingers with his. Maybe his heart stopped in the process. He was only human. “Ready,” she replied, then together they opened their doors, let go of one another’s hands, and made their way into the studio. 

It was dark as they approached the door he knew would be open, they could barely see a thing until he pulled out his phone and turned on the flashlight. Rey still clung to his arm until he got them onto the main part of the stage, and turned on the lights. He couldn’t resist giving her that classic Solo smirk as soon as she was visible to his naked eyes. A light shone from behind him, illuminating her face as he looked into her eyes, and in a moment of brief stupidity, forgetting that they were just friends, he caressed her cheek for a half second before he walked past her to turn on all the torches, firelight flickering around the room with the stage lights. 

Another heave of her chest followed as he walked away. “I’ll—I’ll get the mat,” she said, stalking over behind the temple to retrieve the gym mat they’d been practicing on for weeks now. 

“I just have to get something from my trailer!” he cried, then he made his way to said trailer, his footsteps echoing loudly, making him stunningly aware of the silence. 

After his trailer, he’d have to get them something more comfortable to lie down on, and so he made a mental note to grab his cape from the costume room. A part of him felt weird even just thinking to himself. It was so quiet on set he could hear his own thoughts, and that made him shudder as he opened the door to his trailer, and stepped inside. 

As his phone flashlight shone over all of the things he kept in there, Ben kept having to reassure himself that he wasn’t a fucking lunatic for grabbing these. This was just a rehearsal, but Rey had been expressing an interest in this for a week now. Well, technically several weeks, but still, it had only gotten serious within the most recent one. 

Thus that weird sense of foreboding he’d been carrying around with him since that morning. 

There were songs, books, movies, ancient fables, and old proverbs about clairvoyance—both for the positive and negative—knowing something big was going to happen before it happened, but he had no idea what. Was it going to be amazing, what happened that night? Or would it destroy what they had and render the next few years the most miserable of his life?

Shaking the thoughts from his head, Ben opened the desk drawer containing the condoms, the Magnum logo glaring at him as he reached in, practically tearing the damned thing open as he pulled one out. 

Fearful that he’d somehow broken it, he inspected the still wrapped condom thoroughly before he shut the drawer, then made his way from the trailer, his entire body buzzing as he made a mad dash toward the costume room. Already, he could hear Rey calling to him from the temple set. His body was buzzing as he ran, feeling as if his skin was on fire as he heard Rey call out for him. 

He needed to move quickly. Pocketing the condom, he threw the door open, searching for the cape as fast as he could. “Shit,” he whispered under his breath, shining the light over every conceivable surface of the room, but finding nothing. 

“Ben, are you okay?” he heard her ask, then at last, he found the cape, the fabric glaring at him from where it had fallen to the floor. Apparently he hadn’t put it away as well as he’d thought. Oh well, that didn’t matter now. He’d probably have to take a bit of yelling from Poe in the morning, but that was fine. 

It would all be worth it, wouldn’t it?

He shut the door, then began running forth toward the set, folding the cape up in his hands as he returned to her. “I’m back here!” Then he came upon the set, and stepped into the light, the flickering torches casting shadows on Rey’s face as she stepped back from the nearest pillar, and  _ fuck _ , she was beautifgul in that low lighting. She was always beauitiful but like this, she was striking. “I was just grabbing this,” he said, holding up the thick, soft faux-fur practice capes they’d been using in rehearsals. “Figured this would make the mat a little more comfortable.”

“Oh,” she breathed, her shoulders sagging slightly as she stepped back, descending the steps to the main temple floor. “I’d thought… I don’t know what I thought.”

Ben smirked at her as he walked over to the mat she’d laid out, and shook out the cape, spreading it out over the mat so that it almost looked like a real bed. God, he wished they’d just bucked it up and done this in his bedroom, that would make this a lot more comfortable, wouldn’t it? “Did you think I’d been dead and buried in a ditch?”

“Something like that,” she replied, then they walked over to the mat, and took their places on either side of it. “You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” he said, then he pointed to the far side of the temple. “I think you’re supposed to be on the steps.”

Rey blinked, then slowly nodded, as if she too felt dazed and a little out of it. Did she feel it too? That weird sense of something coming just over the next hill? “Y-yeah you’re right.” Then without another word, she crossed the room, and sat down on the steps of the temple, crossing her legs like she had in their previous rehearsals as she looked at him, that sense of anticipation building to a boiling point in the air between them as he held her gaze. 

_ Oh,  _ she had to know. 

His whole chest shuddered as he looked at her, then he broke the stare, and nodded. “Perfect, let’s do this,” he said, then he walked over to his side of the room, took his place, and they both slipped into character. 

Or at least, he thought they did.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Ben as Kylo said, barely keeping hold of his character as she looked at him as though she’d been waiting to find him for a thousand years. Perhaps she had if the multiverse and reincarnation theories held any wait to them. “If they catch you--”

“If,” she repeated as Kira, and there was this slight tremor to her lower lip that was distinctly  _ Rey, _ making him think that maybe, just maybe, she was struggling, too. It was impossible, though, wasn’t it? This had to be just wishful thinking, just some half-hearted hope. She didn’t want him like that right there and then. Surely she didn’t. . “If they catch me.”

Ben’s mouth shifted uncomfortably as he stepped toward her with an abundance of caution, as if he was afraid she was a mirage that would soon disappear. The part of her that still seemed to be Rey was looking at him the same way, and again he thought of the anticipation he’d been feeling in the air that night. “I shouldn’t be here either.” His voice trembled, lower lip quivering as he finished speaking, and as he looked into her eyes, he could see everything she wasn’t saying written in them. It wasn’t just Kira who wanted Kylo that night, he realized, but Rey wanted him as well.  _ Holy shit.  _ “Tomorrow--”

“I know what tomorrow is.” She held up a hand, then she uncrossed her legs, and stood up, taking a step toward him as they slowly began to close the gap between them, tension climbing to an all time high between both he and Rey and Kylo and Kira as they both began to slip a little of themselves into the performance. “I’ve been thinking about it all day, and well into tonight, and I realized I couldn’t spend my last night in my tent with the others… I… I had to meet you.”

He swallowed, fighting back a shiver as he realized she was looking at his throat, his lips, in a way that hadn’t been directed in the scene. That was all Rey. Pure, unfiltered Rey, and he just wanted to cut the bull shit and stop pretending. In fact, for a moment, he forgot they were even acting; this was real now, they were admitting what they wanted—on a physical level, at least—and they were actually about to— “I know we’re both duty-bound, I know when the sun rises we must both fight on opposite sides, and it kills me to think of facing you in battle, but…”

“You have to,” she finished for him, then she stepped toward him again, seeming to reach out for him before she let her arm fall to her side. “But it’s killing me, too.” 

Another silence fell between them as Ben took her in, his character dropped, gone to him now as he pleaded for something within her that he hoped she was ready to give. “How many more hours do we have until the sun rises?”

“Not enough,” she answered him, then she stepped into his space. “I don’t know what to expect from tomorrow, but, Kylo?”

“Yes?”

She looked at him again, resting a hand on his cheek as his entire world shrank to just him, her, and the temple lights. “Will you stay here with me tonight? I don’t… I don’t want to be alone.”

“You won’t be,” he promised her, then one of his arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her close to him. “Not tonight.” And fuck, that was just the dialogue they’d practiced a million times, but somehow, on this night, it felt like so much more. It made the air feel a thousand times thicker and infinitely more heavy. 

“Can we forget this is happening for a little while?” Her other hand came up, burying itself in the raven strands of his hair as she took in a deep, shaky breath, her heart racing in earnest as she pressed their foreheads together. “Plea—“

Just like the first time they’d rehearsed this, Ben cut her off before she could finish the word, his lips finding hers as if drawn magnetically. This time, though, he kissed her as Ben Solo, no trace of Kylo Ren in the way his lips moved against hers, and the moment she started kissing him back, he could feel that she too had dropped character. 

Rey returned his kiss with a ferocity he hadn’t known she possessed. Before now, he’d thought only Kira could kiss like this, but as the kiss grew more intense, he knew she could, too. This felt so good, so perfect, and while all along he’d been wishing they were on the floor, rolling around on the mat already, he almost wanted to just live like this forever. 

Ben’s frenzied, hurried kisses consumed them both with how she returned them, but they carried an undercurrent of tenderness, a slow, gentle caution that nearly had her sagging slightly in his arms until the moment he broke away, needing to know that this was what she wanted, that she needed him in the exact same way that he needed her. 

This wasn’t just a rehearsal, anymore, but Ben leaned their foreheads together, just like he had at their first private rehearsal, and sighed. “You’re still holding on,” he said, then the scene ended, but they continued clinging to one another like they were each other’s lifeline.

Neither of them moved for several seconds, the tension was so heavy in the air he almost felt like he couldn’t breathe, and the sound of the torch fire flickering faintly in the background seemed to roar in his ears, it was so quiet. He didn’t know what to do, what to say, how to react, the air was so god damned thick, but luckily, one of them was better at talking than the other. At least about this. One of Rey’s hands delicately hovered over his cheek, trembling so hard she’d likely cause the earth itself to quake as she leaned in, and brought her lips to his in a kiss that was undoubtedly between her and Ben, and no one else. 

He returned it curiously, his lips questioning against hers, asking everything he couldn’t say while he was kissing her, that part of him that couldn’t believe this was even happening still fighting to open its eyes. Fortunately for them both, it was very, very real, and it was only just beginning. 

Still he pulled away before he was ready to, his chest heaving with every breath as he struggled to find the words to say next. How did they open up here? He’d done this before with other people, and surely he’d had a conversation like this before hand, but even with Tai it hadn’t felt this intense, this all consuming. 

That had to be a sign, he thought, that something greater was meant to come from this, but he didn’t want to think about that right then. All that mattered was this moment, this night, and he just wanted to bask in every sweet second he stood in her atmosphere. 

“Ben…”

“Am I—am I seeing this wrong?” he asked, his voice soft enough that even he struggled to hear it. “Rey—“

She shook her head. “You’re not, I promise you’re not.” 

_ Sweet, merciful lord— _

“Are—are you sure? Rey, I…” He took a deep breath, then one of his arms wrapped around her waist again, and he gave her a tiny little smile that had her leaning in a little closer. “I want to do this with you, I want to make it good for you, but I want you to be absolutely sure you won’t regret it.”

“I don’t think I can regret anything when I’m with you,” she mumbled, her voice almost too quiet for her to hear, then she gave him a nod. “I am sure, Ben. I won’t regret it, so please, god damn it, I need you inside of me and I need you inside of me last fucking week.”

Surprise filled him, but then he nodded to her, and she began to tremble, her body shivering as he knelt in front of her, eyes never leaving hers the entire time as his hands skimmed down along the sides of her body, memorizing every little crease in her clothing and every curve as if he wanted to immortalize it in his mind forever. “Okay,” he whispered, then he leaned forward, gripping her hips as he pressed a kiss to the center of her abdomen, adding another further down a second later as his hands came around to undo the button of her jeans. 

It was then that he knew he couldn’t take the waiting anymore. If he was lucky, he would experience this over and over again, and so before he could stop himself, the button was open and his deft fingers undid her zipper so quickly he couldn’t even blink before it was over, and his fingers were sinking themselves beneath her waistband. “Ben…” she breathed, then he slowly began to pull the fabric down over her thighs, dragging her underwear with it as he watched her shiver with every passing second. 

“Don’t be afraid,” he replied, pressing a kiss to her hip bone, wanting to ensure her comfort even as he grew desperate to sort of ravage her. “I’m here.”

“I’m not afraid.” But he could tell she was. There were little hints of fear seeping through her into him, and he pulled her close, assuring her with his eyes that she was safe, and he wouldn’t force her to do anything she didn’t want to. This didn’t have to be scary. 

The hands at her hips began to tug her forward, and he felt her shake again in his arms as he crawled backward onto the cape covered mat as she stepped over him, his body falling between her legs. A thrill ran down his spine, spiking adrenaline in his veins as she knelt down, straddling his waist, and she took his face in her hands again before kissing him long and deep. 

A tiny moan escaped him as she swept her tongue along his lower lip, sparking something in that feral part of him that wanted this to be raw and intense, but they both ignored that impulse, knowing they needed to handle this delicately. He always wanted this moment to be one she would remember forever, even if they never became anything more than this, and so he couldn’t just let instinct take over and lose himself to it. He wanted to give her his entire heart and soul, to vow it to her and promise it was forever hers—

A part of him thought that sounded suspiciously like a wedding, but they weren’t anywhere near that stage. He was still too much of a coward to tell her he loved her.  _ God,  _ he loved her. He loved her so much. 

Unfortunately, emotional love still hadn’t come up as a topic of conversation between them. Maybe one day it would, but their relationship beyond this arrangement, beyond this friendship wasn’t going to change just yet. 

Forcing himself to stop thinking like that, Ben hummed against her as her hands drifted down, skimming over the fabric of his clothing as she made to undo the button of his jeans, to free him the way he had freed her—but suddenly he stopped her, his hands covering hers as he broke the kiss to look into her eyes. Both of them were panting hard by then, both of their chests absolutely heaving as they stared at one another in the aftermath of the very heated kiss they’d just shared. “Not yet,” he breathed, then she felt his hands coming up again to support her back. “You need… you need foreplay.”

That was important. He couldn’t just push inside of her and expect it to go smoothly. She needed to be wet and wanting, fully prepared for whatever they were about to do—and  _ god,  _ did he love her cunt. He loved going down on Rey. It was probably his favorite pastime at this point. 

“Ben,” she replied, her voice a high pitched whine as she breathed his name. 

“Come here.” That was a vague command, but he kept flicking his gaze between her face and the apex of her thighs, and eventually, realization dawned on her face. 

She was cute like that, shocked, a little scared, and a lot excited, and maybe he fell a little harder watching her react to his silent request, but he didn’t have time to think about it. Seconds later, he started having a stroke as she crawled over him, her eyes still locked on his as she brought her cunt over his face. 

His hands came up to support the backs of her thighs, mischief and anxiety filling as he watched her get into position. Logic told him he shouldn’t be scared, but as he’d thought to himself before, this was the first time he’d ever experienced feelings this intense. 

There were so many questions he wanted to ask her, but whether or not he had the courage to know the answers still hung in the balance. 

Not wanting to give himself the chance to say something stupid, he let his thumb rub a soothing circle into her skin, then he pressed lips against her inner thigh, and she began to quiver on top of him, her fingers digging into his hair in anticipation of what was coming. A fresh wave of mischief filled him, then his tongue licked a stripe from her entrance to her clit, and he had to support her back as she nearly keeled over. It occurred to him that perhaps the position they’d found themselves in wasn’t the most convenient for having oral sex given that she couldn’t keep upright, but he just wanted to make her feel good, to feel comfortable when they took this a little step further, and so he kept going. If he couldn’t support her through this, then they shouldn’t be doing it at all. 

At the bare minimum, it seemed to be working. Rey was getting increasingly wet with every stroke of his tongue against her, every single time he sucked her clit between his lips, and he was starting to think that maybe, just maybe, this was a fucking stellar idea. “God, Ben…” she sighed, and he felt a fresh wave of pride surge through him. 

He laughed against her clit, her body twitching on top of him as the vibrations passed through her. A part of him wanted to ask if she was okay, but then she looked down at him, her hair a disarrayed frame around her face as her hooded eyes met his, her body backlit by the torchlight as her hips ground gently against his face. 

Another moan escaped him, her eyes clenched shut as she muttered a series of semi-coherent curses. All they could do was pray that there was absolutely no one within a mile of the set as she cried out at a volume that was definitely obscene, the feelings he was bringing her seeming to become too much for her to handle. 

As his lips closed around her clit and sucked, and he could tell she was starting to get close, starting to fall apart, and so he sucked harder, faster, telling her with his mouth how much he—

“Ben… Ben I’m going to come,” she warned him, causing him to laugh against her cunt. 

“That’s kind of the point, Rey,” he replied, taking a moment to breathe as she sat back on his chest. “I want you to come.”

“But I want to come with you.” She took his face in her hands, and his entire body relaxed as he listened to her speak, realizing he wanted that, too. “I want us to come at the same time.” 

Another shuddering breath passed through him, and as he rubbed gentle circles into the back of her thigh, he knew exactly what she wanted, but he needed to be sure. “So you have no interest in letting me do this for you? Absolutely none at all?”

“Ben, please,” she whispered, then she crawled back so that she was straddling his thighs, reaching again for the button of his jeans as he watched. As she watched him, he saw her breathe a little heavier as she slipped the button through its hole, then reached for the zipper. In her eyes, he could see everything she was thinking, all the fear, all the bravery, and all the desire wrapped into the colors of her irises. A part of him wanted to reach up and touch them, to just get lost in them forever and never come out. 

And somewhere in their depths, he could see something brewing that he saw every time he looked in the mirror when he was with her. It reminded him so much of the way he looked at her, the way he felt about her, it was overwhelming. Maybe this was it, this was the time to tell her the truth of what he felt, maybe this was a sign—

As her shaking fingers slowly undid the fly of his jeans, Ben’s hand came up, covering both of hers with his. This was it, his moment to say it, and so he opened his mouth, preparing to tell her everything he was feeling, but at the last second, he remembered something else, and that was an easier thing to admit than those three little words. “I-I have a condom,” he said suddenly, blinking at her with hope in his eyes as he sat up, and reached into his back pocket. 

A shocked little noise left her mouth. “When did you get—“

“I bought them a few days ago, I’ve been keeping them in my trailer just in case,” he admitted, his cheeks filling with heat as he continued digging in his back pocket. “Is that okay?” 

“It’s perfect, you’re perfect,” she replied, shifting back again as she watched him pull out the condom—which has tried its best to evade him and his wandering fingers, but failed—and placed the edge of it between his teeth. 

Her breathing only grew more ragged as she watched him tear open the condom, then he shifted forward, and she rolled off of him, seeming unable to remove her gaze as he shifted over the fur cape and hooked his fingers beneath his waistband before taking off his jeans completely, kicking them off to the side along with his shoes and socks. 

Both of them were stripped below the waist now, and somehow, seeing him as naked as her, Rey felt a renewed burst of confidence ignite somewhere deep in her gut. As Ben slowly removed the condom from its package, his focus was torn between opening the damned thing and watching her while she reached for the hem of her shirt, and lifted it over her head, discarding it where he’d tossed their other clothes so that she was left only in her bra. This she quickly remedied by reaching for the front clasp, and letting it come undone with a quick pinch of her fingers before it fell from her shoulders into a pile on the floor. 

Immediately, his eyes were drawn to her chest, where a thin layer of sweat had begun to shine on her skin. It was distracting, really, the way she looked when she was naked, and he took a second to admire her like this, to really enjoy what it felt like to see all of her, every inch of her skin for the first time. 

What if he never got the chance to again? What if this was all he ever had, and she decided to end this so they could strictly remain friends? He had all these fears, and he couldn’t let them overtake him, so he forced himself to look at her, to just take her in as if it weren’t the first or last time, but just one of many times and this was something he was used to seeing everyday. This was just his new normal. 

Rey quirked an eyebrow at him then, knowing full well what he was doing as he finally managed to reach behind his head to grasp his shirt in one hand, remove it, and toss the damned thing in the same direction as hers. 

Now all there was left to do was take his cock in his hand, stroking it a few times before he finally rolled the condom over it. Once that was done, he turned to look at her, blinking a few times to try to reassure himself that she was real. 

It took him a couple of seconds, but eventually his brain decided that this was actually happening, and he crawled over to her. Rey rolled back into the fur cape, letting his body shift over hers as their eyes met again. It felt like they were standing at a cliff’s edge all of a sudden, like they’d reached the point of no return. 

Her breathing became shaky once more, that fear he knew she felt making itself known as Ben reached up to brush a strand of her hair behind her ear as he took notice. “We don’t have to do this,” he whispered, even though she was currently wrapping her legs around his hips, digging her heels into his ass in anticipation of what was to come, even though that was making his head spin. “We can just go back to rehearsing if you want.”

“Ben, I want this,” she breathed, tugging him a little closer as she wrapped her arms around his neck. “I want you .”

“You’re sure then?” His eyes searched hers desperately, trying to find even the tiniest hints that she didn’t want this—didn’t want him. He could try all he wanted, though, and he’d never find that sign. Rey wanted him, fully and completely, in a way she’d never wanted anyone else, he could see it in those hazel depths he loved so much. “You don’t want anyone else.”

It wasn’t a question because it was fact, and now he knew it, too. She didn’t want to wait around for someone else, someone he thought she’d be romantically in love with, because she trusted him—she wanted it to be him. “I don’t want anyone else,” she promised him, chills causing goosebumps to form on his arms as they tightened around her. “Just you.”

“Just me?”

“Just you,” she promised him, making it nearly impossible for him to hold onto the belief that her feelings for him were strictly platonic. 

“Then you can have me,” he whispered. 

If his voice trembled slightly on that last word, she thankfully didn’t call him out on it, she just watched as he shifted on top of her, lining himself up with her entrance as he prayed to any god that would listen that he did this right, that he wouldn’t hurt her. Much to his surprise, as he pressed his tip against her, she relaxed against him, her eyes finding his as her fingers stroked his hair, and he began to press his cock gently inside of her. 

Rey felt incredible every time he touched her. Just fucking her with his fingers was a religious experience, tasting her was akin to heaven, but this? This was exquisite, as if he had finally found the answer to an unholy amount of questions he hadn’t even known he’d been asking. A tiny gasp escaped her as he continued to press inside, and he wondered how it would feel to come like this, sheathed in her, surrounded by this woman and nothing else. 

“Just tell me when to stop,” he whispered, his voice small as he spoke the words. 

She almost didn’t seem to hear him as he continued pushing in, stretching and filling her the way he’d been wanting to for weeks until she gripped his hair a little more tightly than was necessary, and he knew before she even said anything that this was it. 

“Fuck, Ben,” she breathed, clinging to him tightly as he suddenly stopped moving inside of her. “Right there, that's… there’s my limit.”

He gave her a nod, then he moved forward, and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead, hoping the gesture was as comforting as he intended for it to be. “Okay,” he replied, then he leaned down, and captured her lips with his before he finally began to move, and she held onto him for dear life as they crossed that final line together. 

His movements were slow at first, hesitant, still so afraid of hurting her. It felt good, but he wanted desperately to fuck her properly. He wanted to sink a little deeper, feel a little more of her. It was clear he probably wouldn’t be bottoming out inside of her, but she seemed to fit with him like her body was made for his anyway. She always had. 

A moan escaped them both when she shifted her hips to meet him on the next thrust, forcing him to move a little faster on each subsequent movement.  _ Oh,  _ so she wanted that too then. Always trying to be the world’s most understanding partner, Ben quickly caught her message, and began moving a little more quickly, thrusts becoming a tad more intense but no less gentle as he locked eyes with her again, watching for any sign of discomfort on her end. 

He could look for days, weeks, or even months, and he became certain he would find nothing. All he would see was more signs of green lights, because he wasn’t entirely sure they’d ever stop wanting each other like this. What they’d started in motion was a chain of events he knew they’d never be able to stop, and with every second of sweet friction between them, he felt like she was on a never ending ride that had just been told to accelerate. 

“Ben,” she breathed as he hit a place deep inside of her, his name leaving her again shortly after as he repeated the motion, kissing her again while he thrust in deep. 

Kissing her was so mundane, so normal at this point, almost as easy as breathing, but it still made him realize how lucky he was every time. He really needed to tell her that, he realized. If he cared about her as much as he claimed to, she ought to have known just how much he cared. Time itself seemed to slow to a halt when he was with her, the entire world shrinking even smaller to just them and the cape they were lying upon. This place had been built to become somewhere holy for their characters to worship, and now they—and soon, Kylo and Kira—were desecrating it in the most deliciously pleasant of ways. The temple was fake, not real, a prop, but something about doing this, doing everything here felt right. 

This was always meant to happen here, on this date, at this time, with her, exactly like this, and nowhere else. Fate itself had decreed this the only possible outcome probably from the moment he and Rey had met, and as he returned her his kiss, as he rocked his hips against hers, he felt perfectly at peace. 

He broke away from the kiss a few seconds later, allowing both of them to breathe as one of his hands began to drift down her body, fingers splaying out over her abdomen for a second before they continued to journey further south. She gasped against him as his thumb found her clit, as he began to rub little circles into it in time with each of his thrusts. All she kept saying the entire time was his name, causing a whirl of emotions to pass through his brain as she slowly lost control. 

She cried out as she met him thrust for thrust, both of them whispering each other’s names in their ears as they built one another up to that shared climax. Rey, however, seemed much closer than he was, and he was bound and determined to feel her come around his cock. He could die happy when that happened, or he could if he didn’t think he wanted to experience a full lifetime of this first. 

“Ben,” she whispered, gasping as her head tilted back from pleasure, allowing him to plant open mouthed kisses—even ones that left little bruises that people would definitely notice—along the line of her neck. “Ben, I’m so close— fuck …” His thumb pressed further against her clit, derailing all possible trains of thought as she whimpered against him. 

“ Come , Rey,” he whispered to her, lips and breath hot against her neck as he thrust a little deeper inside of her. “Just come for me, don’t wait.”

Rey gasped as she came, her cunt fluttering around him as waves of pleasure rushed through them, his orgasm washing over him in turn as he cried out sharply just before he spilled inside of her. It was exactly what he’d hoped it would be, as if fireworks were exploding and lightning had struck twice. Something holy and unholy all at once. 

They’d reached their peak, but they still weren’t spent. 

Ben’s thumb rubbed over her clit once more, and galaxies filled his vision as she swore loudly enough to wake up the whole damn city, clenching around him as he continued to fall apart. “Fuck, Ben…” she whispered, repeating his name like a mantra as they began to come down from their high. “Ben, Ben, Ben…”

“I know,” he replied, repeating those two words as he left kisses along the sides of her face, the movements of his hands and cock slowing all the while. But oh, he knew, he knew exactly what she meant even though she wasn’t saying any words. He knew all of it, but he was in such a haze, everything was so blurry, he could barely make sense of it. “I know…”

What did he know? That she’d come? That she loved him? That he loved her? That everything had changed? Some part of him knew what that meant, but his mind still wasn’t as sure as his heart was. 

Both of them were panting hard in the aftermath, seeming unable to breathe in spite of the frenzied, lazy kisses they kept sharing—the ones he was now pressing to her lips as he held her in their post-coital haze. Behind him, one of her hands collapsed, going limp in his hair as he slowly stopped rubbing her clit, and brought his hand up to meet hers. As if they’d been drawn to do so magnetically, their hands both opened up, fingers then lacing together like they’d been created to weave between each other, like every piece of open space between himself and Rey was tailor made to fit together. 

They stayed like that for a while, just breathing, his kisses coming to an end as he took the opportunity to just stare down at her through the messy curtain of his raven tresses. She got that hypnotized look on her face again, and with her free hand, she reached out and touched his hair, watching his eyes stared down into hers. Though he could feel her fingers trembling horribly, she still smiled at him as she brushed a strand of hair off of the thin sheen of sweat that had developed on his forehead, and giggled softly, causing him to join her as he rolled off of her, then adjusted the fur cape so that it was covering them both like a blanket. 

Once they were warm, he then reached beneath the fur, and pulled the condom from his softening cock, tying it off as best he could before hurling it in the direction of the trash bin they knew was always waiting behind camera number three. At least now if someone walked in and caught them, the first thing they’d see wouldn’t be Ben’s entire bare ass. 

When he was done, he looked down at her again, making more giggles fall from her lips as he swept her into his arms, allowing her to use his chest as a slightly sweaty pillow, her head warm against his skin. “What’s so funny?” he asked her softly, hand reaching for hers again as he pressed a feather light kiss into her hair, hoping it wasn’t too much but no longer afraid of what would happen if it was. 

“Your hair’s all messed up, I made it worse,” she explained, reaching up to try and rectify her mistake again, this time apparently to a higher degree of success as she brushed the strand behind his ear, and grinned again. “There we go.”

“Yours isn’t exactly golden either, Rey,” he informed her, eyes scanning the perimeter of her face as he looked around at the tangled he’d made in her hair. “You look well and thoroughly fucked.”

“I feel well and thoroughly fucked.”

They both giggled at this, then he tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, taking in a deep breath as his thumb ran over the back of hers. He felt like he’d learned so much over their time together here, but there was one thing he still desperately wanted to know. “So it was good then? For you? I didn’t make your first time completely suck?”

“Good?” She sounded offended at calling what happened just “good.” As if that were a crime. That, however, was precisely the reaction he was hoping for. “Ben it was absolutely incredible.”

“Yeah?”

“It was—it was perfect. You were perfect. You made me feel… wanted, safe, comfortable, like I was having a good time, and it was everything I’d ever wanted from something like this, so…” She leaned forward, pressing a kiss to his jaw as she spoke. “Thank you.”

He was trembling beside her, but his hand came up to gently stroke the skin of her back, and he finally understood that this was perfect for her. “It was incredible for me, too,” he told her, saying nothing else as he then leaned forward, and captured her lips between his, pulling her on top of him as he rolled back into the cape, and fabric rustled around them as he began to lazily, sweetly kiss her. 

It occurred to him that eventually they would need to leave. They couldn’t sleep here and zone out in that haze that had fallen over them in the aftermath, but he could enjoy this for at least a little while longer. They could lie here for another few minutes and let their kisses confuse each other with words they weren’t sure they were ever going to say, and he was perfectly content with that. 

Leaving was going to happen at some point, but he was choosing to live in the moment. Ben chose to hold her as he kissed her more sweetly than he ever had before, as they finished making love for the first time in the exact spot where—in a few short hours—their beloved characters would soon be following in their footsteps, and history would repeat itself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic (and it’s original) has a [playlist!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/31WTBtCnW9mAnHyNtilAu7?si=iPdVfLU1S6-U9l6wkPzTgw)


	9. Denial of the Fittest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so sorry it’s been so long, I have so much shit going on I’m so sorry.

They wound up having sex at least three times that night. Sometimes he sank into her, his cock sheathing itself inside of her as they moved together with reckless abandon, and other times they would get each other off with their mouths.

Rey’s lips around his cock was a sight he now knew he’d never grow tired of.

All the while, he couldn’t stop smiling. It was as if he’d peaked in life, as if it couldn’t possibly get any better from here, and yet something told him it wasn’t close to that just yet. There was more that was still to come, he just had to wait for it.

He could do that—right?

“We should leave,” he whispered to her eventually, having woken up from a brief, twenty minute nap. “We can’t sleep here.”

“But I’m comfortable.”

He gave a gentle laugh, fighting back the urge to press a kiss into her hair—but they were cuddling at present, so how bad would it have been if he did?—as he looked around them. The torches they’d lit earlier were going out, the light growing more and more dim by the second. They needed to leave. They were pushing it with how many rounds they’d gone and the nap in between.

And they had the scene to film in the morning anyways. They really did need to go. Now.

“Rey, we need to put everything away and get dressed. Poe will fire us both if he learns we had sex on his set.”

“Didn’t he and Finn hook up in the knights’ quarters once?”

Snorting his amusement, he rolled out from under the cape they’d been cuddling under. A part of him felt guilty for it as her heard her whimper after him, but then he tossed her the t-shirt she’d peeled off earlier, and it turned into a groan. “Get dressed. We can go back to my place and sleep in a real bed. You like real beds, don’t you, Rey?”

“Fuck you.”

“I love you, too,” he retorted, half-wishing she knew just how real those words were to him. He loved her, he loved her so much it was overwhelming. He had to tell her soon. Maybe that night, when they were done with the scene. At least if he did it that way, he wouldn’t have to deal with the awkwardness that would follow if she didn’t return his feelings somehow until after the scene was over.

There was no way she felt nothing for him, was there? His curiosity grew as he pulled together his clothes, dressing slowly as he became distracted by the sight of her doing the same. The way she held him, kissed him, _fucked_ him, it was all so tender and vulnerable. The very thought that it all was still platonic like it had been at the start seemed blasphemous, but a part of him still doubted.

No, this wasn’t all doubt. It was also fear. He had thought he—no—he _had_ been in love with someone once before, and they had fallen out of it. What if that happened with Rey? It felt like a foolish question, but as he looked at her, he knew that it would be worth it no matter the outcome. Loving her, whether it was for two days or a lifetime, would be a most wonderful treasure to experience.

“What are you looking at?” she asked him, causing a blush to coat his cheeks as he threw the cape they’d just fucked on over his shoulder

“Your sex hair,” he replied, causing her to swear at him as she began to fold up the gym mat. “I’ll put this in the costume trailer and throw out the condoms. Think you can handle the mat and torches?”

She gave him a nod. “Yeah. Meet you at the car?”

He gave her a warm smile in return. “Meet you by the car.” Then with that stupid smile still broad and shining on his face, he walked away into the costume trailer to return the cape, praying that it didn’t smell this much like sex when they came back in a few hours.

*

  
  
Ten minutes later, they were on the road, eating the remainder of their earlier McDonald’s run as a post-sex snack on the drive back to Ben’s apartment. Rey was yawning at least once a minute, but somehow she managed to stay awake the entire time as she sleepily told him how wonderful the night was to her.

It filled the very soul of him with joy.

“You’re sweet, did you know that?”

“Oh?”

“So sweet. We’re not lovers, but you still held me after, and… and you made me laugh, and— I just really loved it.” She laid a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently. “Thank you for… just everything. The most incredible first time in the history of first times.”

Another snort left him. “You must be tired.”

“But I still mean it.” She squeezed his shoulder again, nearly making him crash the car as he pulled them into the parking lot. “You made it seem so normal and I’d been scared of being that vulnerable for so long, and you showed me that it didn’t have to be scary.”

Oh, she really was saying all the right things, wasn’t she? It sounded less and less like she felt nothing for him, but he still had to wait. He did not want to have this conversation while they were both half asleep. Besides, odds were if she felt anything for him, she’d feel it in twelve hours.

He could wait.

Pulling into his parking space, he looked over at his half-asleep passenger. “Can you walk?”

“You didn’t fuck me _that_ hard.”

More laughter fell from them both. “No, I just meant you look tired.”

“Were you going to carry me inside if I said no?”

“Maybe.”

She shook her head as she unbuckled her seatbelt, then hopped out of the car. “Ben Solo, you’re an idiot.”

“But you love me,” he pointed out as he followed her away from the car.

Pausing, she turned to hold out her hand, waiting for him to take it before she nodded. “Yeah, I love you.” They began to walk toward the building’s entrance. “Idiot.”

That little nickname at the end there just made him fall for her a little further, his mind melting as he thought about what it might be like once they’re finally open and honest with one another. That teasing that already meant so much would mean so much more. He knew it would all change, but so much—the little things—would stay the same.

As they boarded the elevator, he looked at her again, his eyes closing contentedly as she leaned her head against his shoulder. “Can we do it again tomorrow?”

He chuckled softly. “Yeah, tomorrow,” he promised her, then the elevator dinged their arrival on his floor, and they stepped out, ready to get that last hour or so of sleep before they finally filmed the scene, and weeks of anticipation came to an end.

*

Walking back onto the set a few hours later felt weird. It was a good weird, though, Rey wouldn’t look at him as they walked past the crew, and every time he got a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye, he could tell she was on the brink of impossibly hard laughter.

Their secret felt as if it were written on their faces. Poe, as a result, would likely have them killed before the first take could be filmed.

 _God_ , they needed to get serious. Calming down needed to be their top priority. They couldn’t do much filming if they couldn’t look at each other without giggling like a couple of loons.

“How are you feeling?” he asked as they made their way toward the makeup trailer. “After all this?”

“A little sore, a little like I should probably take a day before attempting that a—fourth time?” They both laughed, then she shrugged as they came to a stop. “But I would entirely like to do that again—“ she placed a hand on his arm, his heart picking up its pace as she looked at him for the first time since they’d started walking into the set. “In the comfort of my own bed.”

“I think that sounds like a good idea, last night was a little—“

“Spontaneous?”

“Yeah, spontaneous,” he replied, his eyes drifting down involuntarily to her lips. “Spontaneous.” His eyes were lingering, he knew they were, and he also knew he needed to remove them before someone walked in and caught them. They weren’t doing anything they weren’t supposed to, but anyone walking in would know instantly why he was staring.

Ben, despite being an actor, had a terrible poker face, and was a shit liar.

Forcing himself to look away, he managed to awkwardly place a hand on her shoulder. “You feeling okay about everything?” He’d just asked her that, but phrased differently, and he wasn’t sure what else he was supposed to say. There was no platonic explanation for the way he’d just looked at her. He was going to have to rely on pure ignorance to get through these next few hours of shooting.

Rey rested a hand over his. “I think I’ve got this.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Then she patted him on the chest. “Why? Are you nervous? Scared to take your clothes off all of a sudden?”

Ben scoffed. “You wish,” he replied, feeling confidence surge within him again at her challenge. Stepping away, he fought back a wolfish grin. “Go get your makeup on, Rey, then we’ll see who’s afraid to take off the other person’s clothes for an audience.”

The first rule of warfare was to never underestimate one’s opponent. He had just done so with her, and unfortunately for him, she loved to have the last word. “Nothing can stop me now. I’ll take your clothes off for Madison Square Garden just to see the look on your face.” With a wink, she then turned away, and stalked toward the makeup trailer, leaving him stunned and a little turned on in the space outside.

Before he could follow her in, he heard his name called from somewhere, behind him, and Ben fought back the urge to groan as he turned around. “What do you want, Poe?”

The showrunner seemed oblivious to Ben’s disdain as he approached, smiling merrily all the way. “Oh, I just wanted to run a couple of things by you really fast. Do you mind?”

 _I want to go to the makeup trailer so I can make sure Rey is okay, please or the love of god let me_ — “Yeah, that’s fine.”

“Great!” His boss opened the script that was in his hands. “I just have a couple of notes.”

*

It must have been only five minutes, but it felt like several hours went by before Poe finally freed him. He didn’t like being irritated with him, they were friends, but he just wanted to get through this day as quickly and painlessly as possible. Once it was done, he could finally tell her how he felt, and no matter what happened after, he would be free.

Knocking on the makeup trailer door, he’d never found himself more relieved to see the face of Rose Tico when she opened it. “Sorry I took so long,” he told her with what he hoped was an apologetic look on his face. “Poe had something he wanted to run by me.”

“It’s fine,” the makeup artist replied, gesturing to the empty seat on the far side of the room, just a few feet away from where his best friend was watching him make his entrance in the mirror. “Go ahead and sit down. I don’t have much work to do with you.”

“Because I’m already perfect?” He couldn’t resist smirking at them both, offering Rey a wink as penance for the one she’d given him earlier as he sat down in the other chair.

The tiny squirm she did in response sent his mind _reeling_.

Rose shot him a mildly annoyed look. “No, it’s because you don’t require eyeliner.” She then returned to her first customer, finishing the last bit of her eyeliner before she set down the pencil, and nodded. “You’re free.” She turned to Ben. “And you’re mine.”

He hummed quietly as she walked over to him, and Rey made her way out of the trailer, barely saying a word on her way out, but he didn’t notice. He was a bit preoccupied coming up with a clever retort to Rose’s joke. “So, I’m yours, huh?”

“You’re an idiot, you know that?”

“I’ve been told.”

“Hold still, I don’t want to stab your eye out with the mascara wand.”

“Yes ma’am,” he replied, then he forced himself to hold still, even as the butterflies began to flutter in his stomach at the realization that he and Rey were really about to film the scene. It wasn’t hypothetical anymore. They were going to film it, and maybe, if he was the luckiest man in the world, they’d be more than friends by the end of the day—and his greatest wish would come true.

Luckily for him, stars kept shining in the daylight, even if he couldn’t see them.

*

An hour later, everything was nearly ready. The crew was almost completely set up and he and Rey were chatting off to the side making some last-minute adjustments to their costumes. Well, she was adjusting his cape, and by adjusting, that meant checking it over for stains caused by their actions from the night before.

“Find anything?” He asked, mischief rife in his voice. Was it bad that a part of him kind of wanted her to find a few obvious ones? That he wanted what they’d done last night to be a little obvious?

Snickering quietly, Rey walked around in front of him, her thick skirts swishing loudly as she moved. “A couple, but I don’t think the camera will see. They’re not exactly shooting us to look at our clothes.”

More laughter ensued from him as he laid a hand on her shoulder, eyes scanning hers for any sign of the anxiety that had plagued her the night before. This was their last chance to change their minds, and he was fairly certain she wouldn’t back out, but he still felt obligated to ask her, just one last time, if she wanted to. “Are you okay with it? Really okay? Now’s the time to back out.”

She cocked her head to the side, giving him a clear look of mild annoyance that would convey the fact that yes, she was indeed ready. There was so much confidence in her gaze, in fact, that he almost felt stupid for asking that question. It wasn’t as if it were unwarranted, though. She’d had plenty of moments these past few weeks in which she’d had doubts, and so had he, but it was nice to ask and hear an answer that was so certain. “I’m fine,” she assured him, her eyebrows twitching up. “Are you?”

Ben laughed as he reached forward, and adjusted the laces on the front of her dress, his fingers just barely brushing against the undersides of her breasts as she shivered from the contact. A smirk blossomed on his face as he finished adjusting them, then he leaned in a little closer as if he was whispering some sort of secret. “I was born for this.”

She opened her mouth to say something else, but before she could, hands clapped together behind them, and the episode’s director was ordering everyone into places. Instead of replying, she simply shook her head at him, likely making some kind of internal vow to get him back for that trick later as they took their places on opposite sides of the temple, hiding behind poles as the lighting crew got to work on setting the scene.

As he watched, Rey peaked out from behind her pole, looking nervous again as she eyed the cameramen, the makeup crew, and the people calling the shots. It wasn’t enough that he thought she might be wanting to back down, but she definitely was scared.

Her eyes met his, and he offered her a smile. _It’s okay,_ he thought, _we’ve got this._ Then in one last attempt to lighten the mood, he shot her a wink, but before she could react, the final calls for “quiet on the set,” sounded loud and clear. The time had come, and whether they were ready or not, this was happening.

_“Action!”_

There was a warmth spreading through his body when they stepped out from behind their pillars, searching around the room for one another for half a second before they both looked at one another with relief in their eyes. “You shouldn’t be here,” Ben as Kylo said, the heat in his body finding its way out through his stare as he remembered how they had done this last night. Memories danced behind his eyes as she watched, and she could almost hear his soft moans from last night in her ears as they made their final approach. “If they catch you—”

_“If,” she repeated as Kira, and there was this slight tremor to her lower lip that was distinctly Rey, making him think that maybe, just maybe, she was struggling, too. It was impossible, though, wasn’t it? This had to be just wishful thinking, just some half-hearted hope. She didn’t want him like that right there and then. Surely she didn’t. “If they catch me.”_

_  
Ben’s mouth shifted uncomfortably as he stepped toward her with an abundance of caution, as if he was afraid she was a mirage that would soon disappear. The part of her that still seemed to be Rey was looking at him the same way, and again he thought of the anticipation he’d been feeling in the air that night. “I shouldn’t be here either.” His voice trembled, lower lip quivering as he finished speaking, and as he looked into her eyes, he could see everything she wasn’t saying written in them. It wasn’t just Kira who wanted Kylo that night, he realized, but Rey wanted him as well. Holy shit. “Tomorrow—”_

_  
“I know what tomorrow is.” She held up a hand, then she uncrossed her legs, and stood up, taking a step toward him as they slowly began to close the gap between them, tension climbing to an all-time high between both he and Rey and Kylo and Kira as they both began to slip a little of themselves into the performance. “I’ve been thinking about it all day, and well into tonight, and I realized I couldn’t spend my last night in my tent with the others… I… I had to meet you.”_

  
In the present, he swallowed, realizing that just like the night before, this was real now, they were admitting what they wanted, and suddenly he could see how she felt for him, he could see little slivers and pieces slipping past the shield of Kira into Rey. “I know we’re both duty-bound, I know when the sun rises we must both fight on opposite sides, and it kills me to think of facing you in battle, but…”

“You have to,” she finished for him, then she stepped toward him again, seeming to reach out for him before she let her arm fall to her side. “But it’s killing me, too.”

Another silence fell between them as Ben took her in, no longer Rey in his eyes, she was completely herself, and her gaze was hungry, needy, and pleading for something, but this time he didn’t think it was actions. It was words, unspoken and heavy, and he could only hope she’d guessed their meaning right. “How many more hours do we have until the sun rises?”

“Not enough,” she answered him, then she stepped into his space, and everything around them seemed to disappear. The cameras, the crew, the set, it all began to vanish piece by piece. “I don’t know what to expect from tomorrow, but, Kylo?”

“Yes?”

She looked at him again, resting a hand on his cheek as the moment drew close, they were about to take their clothes off in front of all these people, and he was going to have to try not to fall apart when he heard her moan into his ear. “Will you stay here with me tonight? I don’t… I don’t want to be alone.”

“You won’t be,” he promised her, then one of his arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her close to him. “Not tonight.”

“Can we forget this is happening for a little while?” Her other hand came up, burying itself in the raven strands of his hair as she took in a deep, shaky breath, and pressed their foreheads together. “Plea—“

Just like the first time they’d rehearsed this, Ben cut her off before she could finish the word, his lips finding hers as if drawn magnetically. Like last night, though, the kiss was pure, unfiltered Rey. Everything about it was impossibly sweet, as if she could communicate how she felt through a kiss.

There was a chance, his brain reminded him, that this was all just wishful thinking. Maybe she was just a really, really good actress, and he was simply a fool.

That didn’t stop his heart from racing as he kissed her, as he recalled his memories from the night before, remembering how good it felt when this drifted from fiction to reality, how amazing it was to just kiss and kiss and kiss her everywhere, and how good her hands felt on his body, how—

  
_Rey returned his kiss with a ferocity he hadn’t known she possessed. Before now, he’d thought only Kira could kiss like this, but as the kiss grew more intense, he knew she could, too. This felt so good, so perfect, and while all along he’d been wishing they were on the floor, rolling around on the mat already, he almost wanted to just live like this forever._

_  
Ben’s frenzied, hurried kisses consumed them both with how she returned them, but they carried an undercurrent of tenderness, a slow, gentle caution that nearly had her sagging slightly in his arms until the moment he broke away, needing to know that this was what she wanted, that she needed him in the exact same way that he needed her._

_  
This wasn’t just a rehearsal, anymore, but Ben leaned their foreheads together, just like he had at their first private rehearsal, and sighed. “You’re still holding on,” he said, then the scene ended, but they continued clinging to one another like they were each other’s lifeline.  
Neither of them moved for several seconds, the tension was so heavy in the air he almost felt like he couldn’t breathe, and the sound of the torch fire flickering faintly in the background seemed to roar in his ears, it was so quiet. He didn’t know what to do, what to say, how to react, the air was so god damned thick, but luckily, one of them was better at talking than the other. At least about this. One of Rey’s hands delicately hovered over his cheek, trembling so hard she’d likely cause the earth itself to quake as she leaned in, and brought her lips to his in a kiss that was undoubtedly between her and Ben, and no one else._

_  
He returned it curiously, his lips questioning against hers, asking everything he couldn’t say while he was kissing her, that part of him that couldn’t believe this was even happening still fighting to open its eyes. Fortunately for them both, it was very, very real, and it was only just beginning._

His mind returning to the present, he leaned their foreheads together, just like he had at their first private rehearsal, and sighed. “You’re still holding on,” he said, then she as Kira growled low, the noise coming from deep in her gut as she tugged him forward, and pulled his entire body against hers. “Let go.”

It wasn’t scripted, but it did feel right. That sentence had always felt unfinished, like an undone piece of a puzzle that was now complete. Both of them were panting hard, still completely out of breath, and still struggling to find focus after their last kiss, but that was precisely what the choreography demanded. Using the energy from the nerves that had built up inside of him, Kylo pulled her in for another kiss, and his arms wrapped around her a little more tightly, both of them kneeling down in perfect sync as they continued kissing.

This was it, this was when Kylo and Kira sank to the floor and consummated their relationship in a way that Poe had described as “softcore porn.” Kylo began to bend her back, and she was lowered to the floor, he could feel her starting to tremble. _It’s going to be okay,_ he wanted to tell her. _There’s no one else. It’s just us now._

Slowly, he began laying her down, putting his leg between her thigh, and starting to drag his kisses down onto her neck as the trembling in her body only grew worse. Kylo’s hand reached for the laces of her dress, and he began undoing them, but then he stopped kissing her neck, sensing she needed one last reassurance. He watched as she opened her eyes to see Ben—not Kylo—staring at her, feeling exactly as he had the night before when they’d done this for real. “You’re—you’re trembling,” he whispered, his voice so quiet he doubted it would actually be picked up by the mics and equipment positioned throughout the room.

Letting out a shuddering breath, her eyes fell on his lips, which he knew always gave away his emotions even if he was trying his hardest to hide them. His lower lip was also quivering, and he caught her almost smiling as she watched it. “So are you,” she breathed.

That lip quivered again as he gave her a tiny smile, then he took in a deep breath. “It’s just us now. Okay?” Another deep, shaky breath, then he leaned in and kissed her again, just so the people watching wouldn’t think they were completely screwing up the scene, but something about it still felt impossibly real all the same. “Just you…” kiss. “And me…” Another kiss, this time on her neck as his hands resumed their work on the ties of her dress. “No one else.”

The nerves melted somewhat at that, and she gave him a tiny nod and a smile as he undid the laces completely, then began working on removing the dress from her shoulders, kissing every piece of skin he exposed. “Just you and me,” she whispered, then she reached for the ties of his cape—his tragically stained cape—and began removing his clothing as well, both of them sitting up in order to properly remove what they’d just untied.

As she slid her dress from her shoulders, her eyes never left him, not even when the cool air around them descended on her mostly bared chest, not even when he watched the rest of her slowly become exposed to the open air. A part of him, some weird, slightly possessive part, wanted to yell at everyone in the room to leave, but right now, this was their job. He couldn’t order them to go away, even if he desperately, desperately wanted to. Once her clothes were off, Ben crawled over her again, then they were kissing, the scene resuming as normal as Poe’s instructions ran through their minds.

 _The rest of the world doesn’t exist, it’s just the two of you,_ Poe’s voice said in his mind as Ben— Kylo— began to press kisses along her collarbone, kissing further down her body as he moved on to the next part of the scene. He could feel her heart racing incredibly fast as she tilted her head back the way they’d rehearsed a million times.

 _The rest of it?_ Poe’s voice continued as Kylo finally wound up between her legs, his lips pressing kisses to her inner thighs as his hands came up to wrap around them, holding her in place against him as she rested her legs on his shoulders. As he finally feigned going down on her, he barely noticed when Rey tilted her head back, the faint scent of her arousal filling him as he tried not to lose himself in it.

 _The rest of the world just fades away_. He was right, they were so lost to the fantasy that reality simply ceased to exist. The world was gone, the fear was gone, and for the next minute or so while he pretended to do filthy things to her with his mouth, it stayed completely still, time itself came to a stop, and even as she feigned her first orgasm—because, of course, on television women could come in thirty seconds—and he crawled back over her, it felt more like when they’d been alone at two in the morning than anything else.

He heard her breathing shudder again as she whispered his name, as he leaned over her, and pressed a kiss to her forehead, and she gripped his hair a little more tightly. For a half-second, they locked eyes again, then he began to move, moaning softly into her ear as she whimpered softly, one of her hands gripping his back as he pretended to enter her as gently as he had the night before. His lips found hers, and she swore into the kiss as he actually ground against her clit on accident, and he couldn’t help the smirk he gave against her lips as he did it the proper way on the next thrust, the scene moving effortlessly as it was always meant to, as the writers and actors had intended for it to be.

And so the world faded away, disappearing completely into the background, completely into the white noise of the universe, as if it would never be seen again—as if for the rest of time, it would only be the two of them, and whether they were Kylo and Kira or Ben and Rey, it would never be the same.


	10. Bare

They spent the remainder of the work day on the scene. All afternoon, they were pretending to have sex for the cameras, the task becoming increasingly draining as it went on. 

At the very least, though, he knew she was comfortable. There wasn’t a sign that Rey was scared or anxious, just maybe mildly unhappy with the idea of doing this in front of so many people, of being limited in what they could do by their eyes and choreography they’d rehearsed far too many times. 

Of course, Ben deeply, deeply enjoyed her company, loved putting his lips all over her body until the cameras were cut, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted to do this again properly, in a way that wasn’t scripted or choreographed. What they were doing there, right then, had actually gotten to the point where his cock was no longer straining against the little sock they’d given him. 

_ That  _ was probably a sign that they’d been doing this for far too long. 

Eventually, they came to the last take, and a smile returned to his face as he kissed her, his body moving with hers again as if it weren’t just play-acting. The scene almost felt comfortable—if not for the lingering eyes watching them from all corners of the room. 

By the time the scene came to a close and his character had come inside of hers, relief had filled him unlike anything he’d ever known. It was as if he’d rediscovered the feeling of peace for the first time, as if in spite of just acting, he’d somehow found a different sort of release. 

Rey’s hand squeezed his, pulling him back to reality with a subtle, quiet,  _ we did it,  _ passing through the contact just before the director finally yelled, “cut!” and he became Ben again. 

More smiles dawned on their faces, then he rolled off of her, accepting a robe to conceal himself from the room, causing a feeling of warmth to surround him, but concealing himself was far from his only priority. There was still a woman sitting on the ground waiting for him, and so he held out his hand for his best friend, who had accepted a robe of her own whilst still on the ground, then he pulled her to her feet.

“You were incredible,” he breathed as they tied the belts of their robes. “I wouldn’t have been able to tell you’d never done this after that first take if I hadn’t known.”

A laugh left her as she shoved at his shoulder. “You know better than anyone, though.”

“Maybe, but you still killed it either way.”

“I had a really good teacher.”

At that, he felt a blush creeping up his cheeks. “Well, it wasn’t just me. Amilyn? Poe? They put the whole thing together,” he protested, feeling more than a little sheepish at her praising of his skills. 

Shrugging, Rey crossed her arms over her chest, then beamed at him. “Yeah, but to me?” She took a step closer, her voice dropping low as she looked around the room as if to ensure no one else could hear them. “You were the one who counted most. The only reason I was able to do that was because you made me feel safe. So thank you, Ben, for keeping me sane through all of this, and for being the greatest scene partner I could’ve asked for.”

Shaking his head, Ben reached forward, his hand landing on her shoulder as he suddenly pulled her close, his eyes drifting down to her lips as he leaned forward. He wanted to kiss her, more than anything he wanted to bring his lips to hers, and just kiss her with reckless abandon, but they weren’t alone. The set was still occupied, people were still milling about putting equipment away and reviewing footage to ensure that nothing needed to be redone. 

A kiss wasn’t an option here. Instead, he settled for the safety of a hug; his arms wrapped around her shoulders, and he pulled her into a warm, sweet embrace. 

The woman in his arms jolted at first, making him worry that he’d somehow done the wrong thing, but then she was hugging him back, embracing his warmth as he lifted her up from the ground, and spun her around, deciding that it would be worth it to take a little risk. A delighted laugh escaped her lips, her hands digging into the fabric of his robe as if a part of her was afraid she’d fall, but she soon loosened her grip as Ben’s tightened around her waist. 

He would never, ever let her fall. If he could help it, he would hold her until his last days. It was still early, what was between them was still so young, but he knew that was how it would be. 

Laughter fell from his lips as he set her down, then readjusted his grip, his hands coming up to hold her face, cradling it in his palms as he smiled, watching her eyes light up as she gazed into his. “I’m proud of you.”

A small, flustered giggle escaped her, her cheeks flushing pink as she nodded. “I’m—I’m proud of you, too.”

“I’ve done this before, but… I think that’s the only time I’ve actually, thoroughly enjoyed it,” he admitted, nearly wincing as he realized what he’d said had come a touch too close to the truth of what he felt for her, but maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. He’d told himself that he would tell her when the scene was over. All he had to do now was break her away from the crowd, take her to his trailer, his apartment, or maybe dinner, and ask her if she felt something for him, too.

Just as he was opening his mouth to say something, Poe clapped his hands together, summoning the attention of the room before he cleared his throat. “Great job today everyone, this went…” A breathy laugh parted his lips, then he walked up to Ben and Rey. “Fantastically, if I may say so myself.” He turned to the others, “I just want to remind you all that we’ll be meeting for a few more shots tomorrow morning, then we’ll start filming the next scene. For now, go home, get some rest, and as for my two stars…” he turned back to them with a smile on his face. “Put some fucking clothes on.”

Both of them laughed, then she reached over, and patted the part of Ben’s chest that was still exposed by the deep v of the robe. “Yeah, Ben, put some fucking clothes on.”

_ Oh, she was one to talk.  _ He snorted his laughter, then they both turned around, facing away from the main part of the set and the crew. “We need to get our makeup off,” he said as they began walking out of the temple, and he offered her his hand as they began climbing the steps to get out. 

For a half-second, Rey looked down at that hand, and he wondered what she was thinking in that brief moment of hesitation. There was something soft in her eyes, but for the life of him, he couldn’t tell what it was. The way she was looking at him, it made him feel as if she was seeing into his very soul, trying to read him or perhaps just simply staring off into space, but the gaze was too concentrated to possibly be the latter. 

That reverie was broken quickly, as she placed her hand in his. “Thanks,” she whispered, allowing Ben to hold her hand until they reached the top of the steps. When they did, he could feel her hand on his long after they’d separated to go to their respective makeup artists. It was as if even though they were only going to be ten feet apart, they both feared the distance would become miles. 

Thoughts of Rey continued to occupy his brain as he walked over to Paige, who immediately set to work on wiping down his face with a makeup wipe. “Nice job,” she told him. “Almost looked real for a second there.”

“Thanks, Paige,” he replied, also fighting off the urge to blush as she rubbed off the mascara coating his eyelashes. “It felt kind of awkward.”

“It always does, but what’s important is that it didn’t  _ look _ awkward.” She wiped over his cheek. “You guys should win an emmy or something for that scene alone, especially once they edit it and lay music over it and all that shit?”

Oh god, the amount of time some poor schmuck in the editing room would have to watch him pretend to fuck Rey wasn’t something he’d ever wanted to think about, but now it made him full body cringe. If he were to be fair, though, they’d had to watch that happen when he and Gwen had done a scene, but given how intimate his relationship had become with his costar, it was much more uncomfortable. 

“A pity for the fucker who has to stare at my ass for several hours on end.”

“It’s not the worst ass I’ve ever seen.” Paige just shrugged, setting down her makeup wipe as she reached for another, then covered all of the areas she hadn’t gotten to yet, layers of beige and black smearing onto the little white cloth. “But it’s also not their job to enjoy it.”

“Was that a dig at my ass?”

“It might have been.”

Unable to help himself, Ben laughed, smiling down at her in a way he knew didn’t quite reach his eyes. Not the way it did when it was directed at Rey at least. Paige was a good friend, a wonderful person, but she wasn’t the person he was closest to, the one he could trust and confide in beyond anything else. “You really know how to make a guy feel special.”

“It’s one of my many talents.”

Ben spared one last look at Rey, then he turned back to his makeup artist, watching as she put the second wipe away. “I think I’ll take the rest of it off in the shower. I have a lot to do today, better to multitask.”  _ Or more accurately, better to get his nerves in order before he told Rey how he felt.  _ “I’ll catch you later?”

A knowing look appeared on her face, then she nodded, pocketing the makeup supplies in the apron she wore around her waist. “Yeah, see you tomorrow. Bright and early.”

“See you,” he replied, then he made his way toward his trailer, trying not to look back at Rey as he went.

All of his thoughts began to center around the feelings he carried for her, his mind a hurricane of emotions as he thought about how he’d wound up here. Just weeks ago she’d only ever been his friend, he’d looked at her as if she were nothing more than that, and then he’d kissed her off-camera, and suddenly his whole world was upside down. 

She was a spell, and he was trapped blissfully by its power. Escape wasn’t an option he needed or wanted—all he wanted was her. 

But maybe he would change his clothes first. 

Stepping into the trailer, Ben made his way for the clothes he’d discarded on the floor earlier, grabbing hold of his jeans and stepping into them as he began to practice mental speeches in his head. Nothing he could think of, though, seemed appropriate for the sheer depth of what he felt for her, his mind was blocked. Everything he thought was wrong, just wrong, and as he pulled his pants up over his hips, he shook his head as he realized that maybe he’d made a mistake in choosing this moment to tell her.

Maybe he wasn’t ready yet after all. 

There wasn’t time to debate it, though. In that moment, he heard a fist tap on his door three times, and though he couldn’t see the person outside, he knew who it was. When he spent enough time around someone, he could recognize their knock, and that one belonged to Rey. 

Gasping softly, he looked at the door, knowing that this was it, the point of no return. Fate herself had forced his hand, and there was no exit now. This was the time for them to lay everything on the table, to expose all of the cards they held in their hand. 

He swallowed nervously, grunting and swearing to himself as he buttoned his pants and zipped his fly on the way to opening it. Technically he was only half-dressed, but given all the shit he and Rey had been doing together lately, he figured it didn’t matter. All it would mean was that when he let her into the trailer, he would be baring his body as well as his soul. 

With one last, deep breath, he opened the door, and felt his heart start beating faster as he saw Rey staring up at him with a hint of a smirk on her face, and nothing covering her body but the robe. Unlike him, it seemed that she’d not even bothered to try going to her trailer to change, which made Ben wonder what had made her want to rush to his door so fast that she didn’t even put on a shirt. 

_ What if she’d had the same thought he had? _ He wondered as her eyes swept over his exposed torso, immediately darting back up as if she were worried about getting caught. Why would she, though, if she knew he was watching?

Both of their chests were heaving as they looked at each other, as he tried to find the words to say to her. Perhaps he ought to have started with a greeting. “Hi,” Ben whispered, then he cleared his throat. “Uh, everything okay?”

She gave him a nod, then tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear. “Everything’s fine,” she told him, then she looked down at the ground, fidgeting slightly with the fabric of her robe. “Can I come in? I need to talk to you about… something.”

This was it, wasn’t it? The moment everything changed for good. If he let her in right then, he would leave that trailer either with Rey as his partner or as someone he only spoke to whenever they had to film together. He highly doubted it would be the latter, but still the fear spiked in his mind, made him wonder if this was the last moment they would have together as friends.

After a second of silence, realized that she was still waiting for him to let her in, to start this conversation that could potentially wind up being the most uncomfortable one they’d ever had. He looked up and found her staring at him with the same hesitance in her eyes that he knew he had in his own. Slowly, he began to step away from the door, making space for her to enter the trailer with him. “Yeah, come on in.”

“Thanks,” she replied, then she stepped into the trailer, and shut the door before she leaned against it, and closed her eyes, breathing deeply, as if she were trying to keep herself calm. What was going on in her mind? What was plaguing her so much that she’d become scared like this? Was it the scene? Did she regret it?

Her eyes opened again when Ben stepped closer to her, wanting nothing more than to take her face in his hands and steal whatever was bothering her if she would allow him to. “You didn’t change your clothes.”

“No, I… I needed to come here first.”

Lips pressing together, Ben leaned back against a nearby counter, then he looked down, and instantly the energy in the room shifted. This was it, the moment it all changed, the final second, and though none of the things he’d thought up in his head seemed right, he knew there was no stopping it. There was no going back now. This was the point of no return. “We—“ he started, then he laughed to himself, and crossed the room, bracing himself against the counter near another window. It wasn’t even open, but that didn’t matter, he was looking down at the granite, staring at the crystals in the flattened rock as if they would tell him just what the hell to say next.

“Ben?” she asked, pushing herself off of the door, and stepping cautiously toward him, one of her hands briefly twitching in his direction out of the corner of his eye, almost as if she were trying to comfort him, too. “What’s going on?”

Slowly, he turned to look back at her, his mouth shifting as he gave her a once over, eyes scrutinizing her form carefully, afraid that this would be the last time he was ever allowed to look at her. The tension in the room felt like a thread pulled taut, all there was to do at that point was wait to see who would break it. “Do you remember that first serious boyfriend I told you about?”

“The actor?”

“That one, yes.”

“I remember.”

Ben nodded, then he inhaled slowly, his breath leaving him at just as steady a pace as he grit his teeth, then prepared to speak again, remembering Tai and how their relationship had soared high and fallen apart. He could talk about that, he knew he could draw from what happened with Tai and the lessons it had taught him. “There are people in your life who teach you important lessons. Some teach you how to read and write, how to count, how to do your taxes, how to find a job, and some teach you emotions.” He looked at her then, a tiny smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as he suddenly found the words pouring out, the dam in his mind breaking and allowing the river of thoughts to flow free. “Someone teaches you how to rage, how to find joy, how to be calm, stressed, bored—“ His breath catches in his chest. “And someone teaches you how to love and what love even is. Within that emotion though, you find subcategories, don’t you? Your parents—your family —they teach you familial love, friends teach you platonic love, and that boy… he taught me what it meant to realize some people’s souls aren’t complete when they’re alone.

“He wasn’t the person I was meant to be with. We broke up after two years, but he taught me what it meant to love someone romantically. He taught me how to show someone through not just words but through the eyes…” His gaze locked on hers, recognizing something in them that he’d been seeing in himself lately when he looked in a mirror. In that moment, he knew this wasn’t going to end in tears. If it did, the tears were not going to be ones of sorrow. “Through little gestures of affection… touch… ” He held out his hand, holding his breath for a minute as he waited for her to take it. 

She blinked at him for a second, then she put her hand in his, and their breath left them in a rush of air, some of the pressure in the room relieving itself in the process. That was it, the confirmation he needed, the assurance that he could keep going. “Ben…” This time it wasn’t a warning, a request to stop, it was a breathless gasp, a soft little endearment she only reserved for him.

“Through that first love, I learned what it felt like to let someone in—to need someone. And I learned that, when you’re as stubborn as me, it’s ridiculously easy to mistake for something that’s strictly platonic. Especially when the friend you love the most is also the person you want the most to be with.” His thumb rubbed gently over the back of her hand, tracing the ridges of her knuckles as he laughed softly to himself, a sincerity to his eyes she’d only caught glimpses of before. “And it’s incredibly difficult to tell when it’s mutual—when the person you want to share your soul with hasn’t told you that’s what they want, too. It’s terrifying, and I’ve been scared—I’ve been avoiding it for weeks now.”

Realization dawned on her face, the last pieces of the puzzle finally fitting together in her mind. A quiet repetition of his name left her lips, but she almost didn’t even seem to be aware of it, it was as if she was on autopilot, unsure how to respond, how to put her thoughts into words, and his name was the only thing she could think.

“That brings me to you.” Ben reached forward, and took her other hand from where it was just hanging limply at her side, their fingers trembling just enough that it was difficult to get a grip on each other. “In spite of learning everything, I somehow didn’t see you coming. You asked me to help you, and my brain thankfully told me to say yes, and somewhere along the line… I don’t know when it happened, but that love I’ve always felt for you? The love I’ve had for you since pretty much the day we met? I think somewhere between the first time I kissed you off camera and when I made love to you last night, it became something else.”

He knew it was early on, but exactly when he knew for sure, he couldn’t say, and that was honest, that was the truth, his truth. Rey seemed to understand it, too, yet still, she seemed unsure of what to say, how to go forth from there. “What?” she whispered, her voice breaking as one of those tears he knew would not be sad spilled onto her cheeks. There was a smile in her eyes, not grief, not anguish or distress. She was happy, and knowing that gave him the strength to continue on. 

Gripping her hands a little more tightly, he pulled them close to his chest, stepping a little closer into her space. “Rey, I feel that kind of love for you, the kind where I think I want to wake up next to you every morning and kiss you every night before I go to bed, and write fucking poetry. I want to shout from the god damn hills everything I feel for you because it’s so strong, it’s overwhelming.” He closed his eyes, then he felt a wet drop of salty water rush down his cheek, and realized that— _ fuck _ —he was crying, too. 

A new challenge rose in his effort to finish telling her how he felt; he now had to figure out how to speak over the lump that had formed in his throat. “I almost said it while we were filming. I nearly dropped character, and told you I loved you in front of the crew, god, and everyone, because I keep holding this back, and I just—“ His tongue came out to wet his lower lip, then he shook his head. “I had to tell you now, because sometimes you look at me, and I start thinking, that maybe, just maybe, you feel the same way. So… I… I love you, Rey, as more than just my best friend. I love you in a way I’m not sure I’ve been taught how to love yet, but if you’ll let me, I’d really like to learn it with you.”

By that point she was shaking so bad he was fairly certain he was the only thing holding her steady, but she still managed to give him a nod before she leaned forward, and smiled as he rested his forehead against hers. “Yes,” she whispered, then she laughed. “I don’t really have a big speech or epic words prepared, but if I did, they’d boil down to the same point you just made. At some point in all of this, my feelings changed, and the reason I came into this trailer—wearing only a robe—“ They both laughed at this, then she let go of one of his hands and placed one of hers on his cheek. “Is because I knew I couldn’t deny it any longer either. I needed you to know that I love you, too, the same way you just said you love me.”

This time, he was the one who was giggling, then he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her into a warm embrace as he finally heard those words he’d been hoping for, as he finally realized the depth of Rey’s feelings for him. They’d been so blind all this time, hadn’t they? So afraid that they would ruin what they had, but while that had been good, beautiful, great even, he knew this would be better. Being in her arms was a comfort unlike anything he’d ever known, a feeling that transcended all others, a lighthouse in a dark and foggy sea. It was  _ right.  _ “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, I was so scared—“

“Me too,” she breathed, one of her hands coming up to stroke the tousled waves of his hair. “God, Ben—“

He pulled back from the embrace a little then, and he looked into her eyes with a smile on his face as she watched him. Oh, that look made so much more sense now. This was how she’d been looking at him all along, throughout the time they’d spent together, and it hit him all over again how fucking stupid they had been, how foolish and naive. How had he ever doubted it? Ever thought it was possible she didn’t return those feelings?

No, he was a dumbass, he’d known, they both had, they were just in denial. 

He heard her laughter again, then she shifted, placing her hands on either of his cheeks before she leaned in, tugging him forward and pulling them both into a kiss that quickly consumed them. It felt like he was on fire, like there was something burning between them, but the flame wasn’t malignant or harmful—it was light; brilliant, bright light that shone brilliantly against the backdrop of the rest of the world. 

It was deep, intense, and breath-stealing, the way her mouth moved against his. They’d shared immersive kisses before, but never like this, never like they’d been starving for years and the other person was the first food they’d laid eyes on, never like they needed each other to survive. They’d been holding out on each other for all this time, and now? Now they didn’t have to. 

They were finally allowed to hold nothing back from one another, and  _ fuck  _ , it felt good. When Ben’s tongue swept along the edge of her lower lip, she granted him access without a moment’s pause, letting him tilt her head back as he deepened the kiss, backing her into the nearest wall as he began to explore her mouth, needing to feel all of her against all of him, to finally kiss her as her lover rather than her friend. She moaned against him as her fingers wound themselves into his hair, tugging on it just enough to get a moan out of him as he tugged her close against him, then he lifted her nto the air, and pressed her back against the wall. 

Rey wrapped her legs around his hips, allowing them to keep each other close as they enjoyed the last few seconds of the kiss, both of them knowing they would need air soon, but not wanting to pull away. They’d starved themselves of really, truly, properly kissing for so long, but he didn’t want to end this now. But now they knew about their feelings for each other, this would happen again. Probably seconds after this first one ended. 

Their lungs protesting violently for air, they managed to pull away, both breathing hard as if they’d just run a marathon when they rested their foreheads against one another. A sort of wonderful, breathless laughter escaped Rey as she dragged her fingers through his hair with one hand, reaching up with the other to touch the dimples of his smile as he beamed at her like she was the sun. 

And she was, she really was.

Rey loved him. She was  _ in love  _ with him, and it wasn’t in his head, it wasn’t a lie. She was as in love with him as he was in love with her, and it impressed him, truly, how stupid they had been all this time, so stubborn, so in denial, and they’d wasted so much time. At least they weren’t wasting time anymore. 

“What?” Ben asked, hearing her breath leave her in a rush. “What is it?”

Another laugh. “You love me.”

His lips briefly brushed hers again, he was still too out of breath to kiss her properly, but then he touched her cheek with his palm, fingers tangling into her hair as he nodded. “I love you,” he said, then they stayed like that for a few more seconds before he swallowed nervously, and bit his lip. “Rey, I really love you.”

“I really love you, too.”

He didn’t say anything else after that; he didn’t need to. Instead, he just kissed her again, the kiss much more relaxed and easy this time rather than desperate. They fell into it in a way that felt natural, allowing them to melt into each other as he pulled her away from the wall, holding her close as they descended toward his sofa at a speed that felt like falling, but the landing was too soft for that to ever be possible, for him to ever feel the need to fear what would come next.

They were past that stage of worry and denial now, and from then on? He would never let her go. They would never know that anxiety again. All they would feel was peace, and whatever came next, they would face it as one, as a unit, as  _ partners.  _


	11. The Shower

They spent the rest of their time on set kissing, they barely made a move to do anything sexual, it was just an afternoon of sweet, tender kisses. In all honesty, they probably should’ve left the set fifteen minutes ago, but he just wanted to spend his time tangled up in her. Moving wasn’t something that particularly interested him. 

It didn’t seem to interest her either, given how she clung to him as he kissed her, how she kept whispering his name every time they would part—they hadn’t kissed like this since that night they’d spent on the couch watching  _ Parks and Recreation _ . That night alone probably should’ve been a sign that they needed to have the conversation they’d just had minutes ago, but she’d felt so good to touch, to hold, he hadn’t wanted to push his luck. 

At least now he knew he would’ve found bliss that much sooner. 

“We should leave,” he whispered against her lips. “Poe is going to close down the set at any minute.”

Rey just shook her head, her fingers brushing back a piece of his hair as she sighed. “I don’t care.”

“You will when Poe knocks on this door telling us to get the fuck off the set and he wants us to go home and I answer the door and you’re…” He gestured to the pasties she was still wearing. “Like this.”

Scoffing, she tugged on the hair she still had in her fist. “I don’t care. Just—” A sigh, then she laid a hand on his cheek. “I just feel so stupid.”

“Why?”

“I could’ve had you so much sooner if I’d just not been a coward.”

His eyebrows furrowed together. “No, no, you decided to tell me now, didn’t you? You would’ve told me earlier if you were ready. You weren’t ready before.” His fingers began to gently stroke her hair. “You’re ready now. I know how scary this can be, we… we don’t have to rush it. Believe me, I’ve had this same thought, but… Rey, I promise you, we’ve done this right. We have time.”

“I suppose you’re right.” 

“I know,” he replied, then he kissed the corner of her mouth. “Now shut up, so I can keep kissing you.”

“So bossy,” she grumbled, but she let him kiss her, his lips finding hers in that perfect rhythm they’d set earlier. 

They melted into one another like it was nothing, as if time and the universe itself weren’t anything, just something that happened to exist alongside them. His world became her, and he suspected hers became his. Everything had shifted in this one moment, in this newfound relationship, and he knew that somehow, in spite of his lack of faith, he’d found that again, except this time, it felt even better. 

A small giggle fell from her lips as Ben’s kisses found her jaw, then she sighed. “How did you know you wanted to tell me today?” she asked, and he moaned again as she began to stroke his hair while he kissed her cheeks. “What made you decide that it was now or never?”

He shrugged, pulling back as his left hand wandered up to support her neck, tilting her head back as he pressed another kiss to it. “I just thought… I don’t know, there’s been this pressure inside of me lately, and I think… today it burst.” 

Her body relaxed against his as he began to suck a little mark into her neck. Rose had covered them up before, bless her heart, and she would probably be willing to do it again. 

As she sighed her relief against him, though, he could tell she was still thinking on what he’d said. “I think that happened to me, too.”

A kiss was pressed over the center of her neck, just above the dip in her collarbone. “There was something about kissing you for the first time,” he whispered, the fingers of his other hand parting the v of her robe as they slipped beneath it, then he kissed her along the hard ridge of bone just beneath her neck. “All reservations dropped. You held nothing back, and I felt…” kiss . “Enlightened.”

Rey sighed as his fingers reached for the pasty covering her nipple, peeling it off as he kissed her again.  _ Fuck _ those pasties. He wanted to throw them in the nearest river and let them disappear. It was criminal that she had to cover them up like this.  _ Criminal.  _ “It was different when it was real.” 

It had been, hadn’t it? He’d felt something else when she was with him the night before, as if they’d transcended the realm of what he’d previously thought was possible between them. “Yeah, it was.” Another kiss, this one a little softer, his lips just barely brushing her skin. “Different. Better.” His kisses landed on the swell of her breast, and he smiled against her skin as his fingers began to push the robe over the edge of her shoulder. “I think the second I kissed you it unlocked something.” He looked up at her, resting his chin on the center of her chest. “It was like suddenly there was this door swaying open on its hinges. There was suddenly this whole other part of the world I’d never even noticed.”

He resumed his kisses, and he could feel her heart racing beneath her chest, her body in perfect synchrony with his. “I felt something that day, too. The second you kissed me as you and not Kylo, something unlocked.”

Another pause. “We’ve been played like fools all along,” he whispered, then he pressed a kiss just to the side of her nipple. “But we were playing ourselves.”

A tiny smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as her fingers ran through his hair, but his words from a minute earlier came through his mind, and he realized that it was simple, they weren’t ready then. They were ready now, that was why they were here, why they were kissing like it was their last night on earth and their first night of a million to come.

Ben’s mouth closed around her nipple then, obliterating all thought as she gripped him a little tighter, but they still didn’t quite lose themselves the way they had last night. Everything still felt just as wonderful, but he was also still very tired—they both were. They’d gotten what he suspected wasn’t even an hour of sleep the night before, and so he knew without either of them having to say anything that they weren’t going to be having sex on the couch that night. They probably wouldn’t even have sex when they got home. 

This night was for something else, this was for a slow, sensual, sweet moment that would drag out until they passed out on top of each other, still tangled up in one another’s arms. Of course, they’d already played a game of risk by spending the night on set one night—they didn’t need to play that game again twice in a row. He didn’t want to play it; he just wanted to take her home and hold her until they passed out. 

“God, this is nice,” she breathed as his teeth grazed her nipple. “You’re perfect, do you know that?”

His cheeks grew hot as he moved off her nipple, and prepared to press kisses on her other breast. “I could say the same for you.”

They continued kissing for another couple of minutes, his lips tracing every single inch of her chest as he explored it thoroughly, wanting to feel every part of her that she would allow him to feel, wanting to know the place where her heart beat, where it  _ raced  _ because of him. 

After a while, though, the awareness that they actually did need to move began to creep in, but before he could voice that, she beat him to it. Only she didn’t bring up their need to leave, but chose to instead focus on something else. 

“Ben?” she asked softly, the corners of her mouth twitching up again as he gave a hum of acknowledgment around her nipple. “I know we just said we wanted to be together and told each other how we feel, but… does this mean we’re going to start dating now? Are we doing that whole boyfriend thing?”

“Boyfriend?” He kissed her nipple again. “Sounds kind of high school to me.” But  _ god _ did it sound cute when she said it. If that was what she wanted, he would tell people he was her boyfriend with pride.

“Partner? Lover? Whatever?” she asked, then she smacked his shoulder as he began to suck on her nipple again without answering. He was only human. “But I think boyfriend sounds cute, too.”

Chuckling to himself, Ben removed his lips from her nipple, and rested his chin on her sternum. “I would love to. But just so you know, my ideal date night is just having you in my bed while we ignore whatever Netflix show we put on.”  _ And maybe you can call me your boyfriend too, I wouldn’t mind it. _

“Mmm, sounds like heaven, I’m in,” she replied, causing him to laugh again as he moved forward, and captured her lips with his. 

God, he wanted that, to just spend his free time with her when they weren’t filming lost in each other, just ignoring the shit out of every single thing in Netflix’s catalogue. That would be enough, he thought, it would be enough for a lifetime. 

But the conversation about their relationship wasn’t over. Beyond how they wanted to do things with each other, they had a lot of other things to discuss still. Yes, they were in a relationship now, and yes that was beautiful, but they weren’t done yet. 

Of course, Rey beat him to the punch, groaning softly as she pulled away. “Wait.”

“What?” He looked down at her in concern, fairly certain he knew what she was about to say, but wanting to be sure of it all the same. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s fine, perfect really, but…” Her hands fell down to his cheeks, thumbs rubbing them gently as his worried gaze swept over her face. “How do we want to handle this publicly? You know, what do we want to tell our coworkers? How public do we want to make this outside of work?”

His fingers crept up, and began to trace the ridges of her sternum, captivated by every tiny part of her as he thought through what he wanted to do. They needed to keep this quiet for a minute, but he didn’t want to have to hide everything forever. Maybe... “I don’t think we need to hide it forever,” he said, his fingers slipping closer to her collarbone. “But I wouldn’t hate a few days of privacy.”

“Mmm, yeah, I feel the same,” she replied, sweeping a piece of hair from his eyes as she pulled his face down, kissing his forehead as his fingers drifted around the back of her neck. “Just a few days privacy.”

“And then we can just… not care?”

“Sounds perfect.”

They were still smiling as they drifted back into each other, her warm lips embracing his. All the while they held each other close, still reluctant to let go, but as the time passed, he became increasingly aware that they were both a little gross and they needed to leave. Maybe they could shower first. No one would fault them for staying behind a little while to shower. 

Eventually, he pushed himself back a little, both of them yawning as he admitted that they needed to shower. Then as they got to their feet, he realized how exhausted he was, how badly they needed to rest after everything they’d done. 

There hadn’t exactly been ample opportunities for sleep after they’d left the set in the wee hours of the morning. They’d had so little time, it was a wonder they’d slept at all. 

Rey barely protested as he led her into the shower, watching as he turned it on, and closed the door while he began removing his clothes. 

She quickly followed suit, tearing off the adhesive underwear, and flinging it somewhere into oblivion, causing Ben to laugh as he stripped off his jeans, and removed his robe.

A second later, she winced. Just as concern was starting to blossom on his features, though, she gave him a tiny smile. “I think I’m still a little sore.”

Guilt rose within him. Had he hurt her? The last thing he’d wanted to do, the last thing he even  _ considered _ wanting to do, was hurt her. She deserved the world, she— “Really?”

“Yeah, just a bit. We did have sex three times, though,” she reminded him. 

_ Oh.  _ “Sorry,” he replied with a wince, eyes falling to the ground in embarrassment. “I—“

Taking his face in her hands, she shook her head. “Hey, I don’t regret it, Ben,” she whispered, pulling him in for another short kiss. “It’s a good sore. I wanted this—I still want this. Last night was perfect, okay? Absolutely perfect.”

A brief silence passed them by, then he nodded, taking her hand in his before he raised it to his lips, and pressed a kiss over the knuckles of her middle and forefinger. “Let’s get cleaned up.”

The smile on his face grew more broad as she squeezed his hand, then Ben led her into the shower, maneuvering them carefully so that they both fit, then he shut the door behind them as warm spray kicked up a fierce amount of steam all around them. His world became reduced to steam, soap, and her, a gentle teasing beginning between them as they let themselves wash the day away. 

Rey always had a talent for making him laugh, always had a natural ability to make him forget everything but her. That talent was more prominent than ever, because he felt like he could finally, properly appreciate it. Now that he didn’t have to hide his feelings for her, every door was suddenly wide open, every emotion was heightened.

It made the simple joy of bathing with her feel transcendent; like something surreal or out of a dream. He watched as she turned away from him, her body exposed to his gaze as he ran his fingers through his hair, trying to get every last particle of product out of it. All the while he watched her, just taking in the simple joy of how… intimate it was. 

This was something he’d only ever had the once, and when things ended with Tai, he’d been convinced he’d never fall in love again. He’d been longing for that feeling ever since, and watching Rey now, naked and vulnerable, it made him realize how much he’d missed it. He knew it was more than that, though, that something about the figure in front of him being  _ hers _ was special. 

He loved her, he loved her more than he knew how to say, and in this moment, he realized how truly lucky he was. His hands found her hips, pulling her close to him, and he sighed as a contented moan left her lips. 

Their bodies coming into contact once more, he wondered if she could feel him against her backside, if she could sense how hard he was. Well, how hard he’d  _ been _ since they’d spent all day filming. It was a wonder his balls weren’t blue like the sky. 

Then she moaned again, making him think that maybe, just maybe, he would look down and find his balls are blue. “This is really nice,” she breathed, causing him to hum against her as his eyes drifted down, genuinely intending to find out if he had fucking blue balls, but finding himself distracted by the globes of her ass instead.

“Yeah, it is. The view isn’t bad either.” It really wasn’t. Rey had an ass he’d had multiple dreams about. They really ought to do more with that ass, if he were being honest, but right then he was more worried about washing off and taking the longest nap of his life. 

“... are you staring at my ass?”

“I might be.” Oh, he definitely was. 

Laughter fell from him as she wiggled her hips, his head thunking noisily against the shower wall. God, if she did that again, he wasn’t sure how long he would last. “Did you always stare at my ass or is this a new development?”

“Do you mean before we started hooking up or after?” he asked, his voice full of mischief as she turned around, allowing him a view of her cheeky smile. He stared at her lips, feeling tempted to kiss her again. The temptation was starting to grow overwhelming, the urge building and building within him until—

“Both.”

“Yes.”

“How platonic of you to check out your best friend’s ass.”

“Well, when your best friend has a nice ass, it should be appreciated, Rey,” he pointed out, his tone full of a sarcastic sort of innocence that had her snorting laughter. 

She turned around, her arms wrapping around his neck while she stepped into his space, her naked body flush against his as they looked into each other’s eyes. His brain contained no thoughts that weren’t about the way he could feel her breasts pressing into his chest. There wasn’t a single intelligent thing on his mind, just a blank space and, well,  _ boobs _ . “Then maybe I should tell you I’ve always stared at your thighs during training. And your arms. And your chest. Maybe all of it.”

“How platonic of you.”

“I’m only human, Ben,” she pointed out, then she rose up, resting her forehead against his, and they both closed their eyes, melting together in bliss. “And now I can do it without shame.”

Giving her one last laugh, he brought his lips to hers again in another kiss, his arms tightening around her as he held her close. They didn’t need to hurry this time, though. Even if they technically knew they had to be gone before the set closed down, there wasn’t any rush. 

Their kisses were no longer desperate, not in the way that indicated they feared running out of time, at least. Now they were long and slow, each one lingering well into the next as they grew deeper and heavier with meaning. Each one spoke its own language, but there was still that same undercurrent of pure affection riding beneath them all. 

As one of her hands drifted down from his hair, he shivered as he felt her fingers trace over the muscles of his chest, nails skimming over one of his nipples as he whimpered against her mouth. “Just tell me if you want me to stop,” she whispered, then she resumed kissing him, her fingertips dragging over the contours of his abdominal muscles as the kisses grew more heated. 

_ Oh _ , she meant… If his poor, hard cock could sing, it probably would have. His erection pressed against her thigh, and she looked up at him again, checking to see if he was okay. The second she saw him nod, she made her move, and slowly, gently, she took his cock in her hand, her fingers wrapping around it as his breath hitched. “Rey,” he whispered, unable to believe this was real, that his day had truly taken such a turn as this. She leaned in, and began pressing kisses against his neck, stroking him gently with her hand. A gasp left him as her thumb glided over his tip, his body shuddering beneath her touch. He could hear her breathing shake, but she never faltered, planting smooth, effortless kisses over his Adam’s apple while her hand began to move more quickly as his breath began coming out in short, sharp little pants. 

His head fell back against the shower wall, water dripping off of his jaw and onto her cheeks as he gasped for air. There were stars in his eyes, glittering in all sorts of colors like a kaleidoscope, but his brain wouldn’t allow him time to take in their constellations. All he could think about was her, the scent of soap and the humidity of the steam. 

“Do you know... how badly... I’ve wanted this... all day?” he asked, panting out the words as she moved her hand a little faster over his cock. 

“I felt you,” she whispered, kissing the edge of his chin as her thumb swiped over his tip again. “I felt you between my legs all day.” Then she laughed, leaning down to kiss his collarbone as he inhaled sharply. “I wondered how blue your balls were.”

_ Quite blue, thanks for noticing. _

Both of them laughed at this, then he took a few seconds to breathe, struggling to get his thoughts together as waves of pleasure washed over his body. “I thought it was possible to get hard during a sex scene.” Another moan passed through his lips, then he kissed the top of her head. “You’ve shown me it isn’t.”

“I thought this whole thing was about you showing me things.”

“Maybe that’s how it star— fuck— how it started, but—“ He groaned again as she increased her pace, making him certain he wouldn’t last much longer. “You’ve taught me more than you can ever know.”

Her free hand wrapped around the back of his neck as she ceased pressing kisses to it, she was the one who was suddenly breathless. For a few seconds, her movements slowed as they stared at each other through the steam and dripping water, completely lost in each other’s eyes for a few seconds before Rey leaned forward, and pulled him into a kiss, stroking him with a fervor again as she stole the oxygen from his lungs. 

He was close, his vision whited out in pure bliss. Everything was heightened, as if he were approaching some great euphoria he had yet to experience, then with another higher pitched whimper, he broke the kiss. Well, mostly, he had just enough self control to stop kissing her, but not enough to pull away from her completely as his come hit her stomach, washing away instantly with the warm water. 

Ben cried out for her as he came, but his voice was winded, breathless, a whisper, and he was fighting the urge to go weak in the knees and collapse as all that tension he’d built up over the course of the day finally wound down, and he became a blubbering, out of control mess. She shushed him through it, stroking his hair with the hand that had previously been gripping his neck as his cock softened in her hand, letting go of it once he was completely spent. 

“I think this is probably the best shower I’ve ever taken,” she told him, his cheeks flushing and lower lip quivering as he laughed in response. 

“I’m glad to be of assistance.”

Rey sighed as she wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his neck as he returned the embrace, both of them holding the other closer than was probably necessary as they swayed beneath the pouring water. “I’m really glad you felt the same way,” she said, lips brushing against his skin with every word, tickling his skin but calming him all the same. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if you didn’t.”

“I don’t know what I would’ve done if you didn’t feel the same way either.” He began to stroke her back then, fingers tracing little shapes and circles as he spoke. “I’m sure I would’ve gotten over it eventually, but it would’ve been painful.” No, not just painful, it would’ve been agonizing, the worst hell he could imagine going through. 

“We never have to know what that’s like, though. I don’t know how anyone isn’t in love with you. You should see the things they say about you on twitter.”

“Oh, I have.”

“Everyone’s in love with you.”

“They’re in love with you, too,” he replied, one of his hands reaching lower as he spoke, fingers spreading out over the left side of her ass. “But I’m the lucky one. You love me back.”

“Guess that makes me lucky, too.”

He yawned softly, breath floating over her ear as he leaned into their embrace a little more, exhaustion starting to take over them both. “A little.” Another yawn. “We should probably get going.”

“Do you need me to drive? You seem like you’re barely holding on.”

“No I…” A pause. “Actually, I might.”

Rey pulled back from the hug, then she reached around him and turned off the shower. “Come on, you. We need to get home. I want to sleep.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Snorting, she pushed the door open, reaching for the towels on the rack positioned just across the aisle from the shower. She tossed one to him, then she began rubbing hers all over herself, drying off as he began to do the same, rubbing every inch of himself until there wasn’t a single drop of water clinging to his skin. Once he was finished, he reached for his jeans, starting to put one of his feet through the pant legs, then Rey’s face fell, but before he could ask her why, she laughed.

“Wish me luck, I’m about to walk of shame over to my trailer,” she told him as she tossed his shirt his way. “Think I can do it without getting caught?”

His face fell as he began putting on his jeans, then as he hopped into them, he moved over to the window, peeking out through the blinds to see if anyone else was out there. Luckily, no one was, andhe gave her a thumbs up a few seconds later. “Go now, though,” he warned her. “You never know who’s going to stop by.” Poe had a habit of coming by his trailer after filming, for all he knew they’d be due for a chat any minute now. 

Giving him a nod, Rey threw on her robe, and headed out the door, leaving him with a smile on his face as he watched her go. She had a little perk in her step, almost as if she were skipping, a feeling he understood all too well. Right then, he probably would’ve skipped too if he’d had to leave his trailer, but just as he watched his partner disappear into hers, he caught sight of Poe approaching his trailer.

Their boss and friend had a smile on his face, a subtle one. It was as if a minute ago he’d been smiling big and now he was starting to enter that neutral space when a big emotion began to ebb and fade into the next one. Throwing on his t-shirt, Ben opened the door, leaning casually against his doorframe as he walked past, and offered him a wave. “Hey.”

“Hey, Solo,” Poe replied, coming to a stop just a few feet from the trailer. “Nice job today.”

Snickering quietly to himself, Ben crossed his arms over his chest. “Didn’t you basically just tell me I fucked good?”

“You weren’t actually fucking, Ben. But…” He shrugged, placing his hands on his hips. “You did make it look convincing.”

He scoffed. “There’s really no way to have this conversation that isn’t awkward, is there?”

“No, none at all.” Looking around, Poe’s brows furrowed. “Where’s Rey?”

“Probably showering. The sex may have been fake, but the sweat wasn’t.”

“In the dark? Her trailer lights were off when I stopped by a minute ago.” 

_ Ah, shit. _ Ben’s cheeks flushed pink, knowing exactly where Rey had been when Poe stopped by, but he didn’t dare speak a word of it out loud. If his boss found out he was having sex on set--well, he’d had quite a bit of sex on this set in the past twenty four hours, but still--he’d never hear the end of it.  _ Duel of Knights _ would have to find a new lead actor.

And a new actress. 

“I don’t know what Rey gets up to in her spare time,” he replied, hoping he looked as innocent as he thought he did and he didn’t have,  _ I totally just got the greatest hand job of my life in the shower and oh by the way, Poe, I also fucked her on your set last night,  _ written all over his face. 

A suspicious look crossed the other man’s face, but he didn’t question him, instead, he pointed away toward his office. “I’ll just go finish up some errands and talk to her after. See you later, Ben.”

“See you,” he replied, then he walked back into the trailer, continuing to work on putting himself back together--where the hell were his shoes--until he heard Rey’s footsteps bounding up the steps to his trailer. Seconds later, she was knocking on the door just seconds before he opened it, slinging a jacket lazily over his shoulder as he pushed the door open a little further, and moved to shut off the lights in the trailer. 

“Hey,” she breathed as she stepped back, looking more than a little winded. 

“Hey.” He looked down at her in concern, taking notice of her heaving chest as he ran his hand through the damp waves of his hair. “You okay?”  _ You look like you’ve just run a marathon.  _

“Yeah, fine, I just…” She laughed, crossing her arms over her chest as he walked toward her, then the two of them began making their way out of the set, heading straight for the parking lot. “I ran into Poe.”

“Oh?”

“He noticed that I’d seemingly showered with the lights off. Found it weird,” Rey admitted, and he had to fight back a laugh as he found himself agreeing with Poe. That was weird. Those trailers were pitch black at night. Once they started turning off the set lights for the day, if they didn’t have her lights on already, they always had a bitch of a time trying to find the damned light switch. Showering in the dark? That was a god damned nightmare; a naked horror story waiting to happen. “Don’t know how much he would’ve believed me if you’d walked out just as damp a few seconds earlier than you did.”

Chuckling quietly to himself, Ben looked around, checking to see if anyone was looking their way, then he held out a hand for her, wiggling his fingers as he waited for her to take his hand. “Come on, no one’s looking.”

“We’ve already taken enough risks today, Ben,” she reminded him, but then she took his hand, her other one coming up to hold his arm as she pulled him close, and leaned her head on his shoulder. 

That felt nice. The gesture was so simple, so genuine, he just let his eyes close for a second as they walked, and let himself enjoy the feeling of newfound love, something he’d missed for far too long. At least he had it now. 

He’d nearly forgotten how it felt to walk with someone he was in love with. It made him feel oddly powerful as he pushed open the parking lot door, like he was walking on top of the world. If he was lucky, incredibly lucky, she’d be the last person he felt that with, she would be it, and he would never need to know heartbreak or loss or longing ever again. 

If she was lucky, she would never need to know it in the first place. She’d trusted him with her heart, and he was going to take excellent care of it. 

“Sorry about Poe,” Ben said a second later, then he squeezed her hand as he reached into his pocket for his keys with the other. “We’ll have to start being more careful if we actually want to hide this from the set.”

She sighed as he unlocked his car, then they let go of each other to walk over to their respective sides. “Maybe not too careful, it’d be ridiculous to hide this from them forever, but maybe we could just stop taking showers on set?”

Ben gave a soft laugh as he opened his door. “That sounds fair,” he replied, then together, they got into the car, he started the engine, and slowly but surely, they drove off into the night toward his apartment, toward what they both hoped would finally be a good night’s fucking sleep. 

As they came to a stop at their first red light, he turned to look at her. “Do you know when I first started realizing I had feelings for you? Can you guess by how poorly I tried to hide it?”

Blinking at him, Rey pursed her lips, seeming to take a moment to think. “I first began to suspect something when we started sharing a bed. We’d had overnighters before, but… something about cuddling you felt… intimate. I know friends can cuddle, but you made me feel safe in a way I’d never felt before.”

He remembered the first time they’d held one another, the first time his hand had cupped her breast upon waking, how he’d felt her heart beat. “I knew--well, I started to--the very first time I kissed you.” The light turned green, but he kept his eyes on her for a fraction of a second longer before he led them out on the road again. “I knew then that nothing would be the same. Not after that.”

A yawn left her, but he soon felt her hand rise to cover one of his, the corners of her mouth twitching softly up. “I think somewhere deep down, I knew it, too.”

“I should have said something sooner, I was just afraid after Tai that--”

“Hey.” He looked at her again. “I promise you, I’m not going to leave you. I know you’ve been hurt before. I know it, but, if you promise not to hurt me, I promise not to hurt you.”

“This is still so early, it’s so young--”

“But I know what I want. I think you do, too.” She squeezed his hand, then let go of it, yawning again as she leaned back against the seat. “But we can worry about it more after we sleep like the dead.”

Laughing once more, Ben turned onto the next street. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Then they drove on, the rest of the drive back to Ben’s apartment being surprisingly short. Perhaps it only felt as such because they’d talked through the drive, but he didn’t think too hard on it. He just wanted to get home and hold her through the night. 

Rey, however, did not seem to be faring nearly as well. By the time they parked, he found himself having to nearly carry her out of the car. Or at least, she claimed to need to. “You think you can walk?” he asked, finding a tiny thrill rush down his spine at the prospect of carrying her up to his apartment. 

“I am fine, Ben,” she promised him, but still gave him an offended groan. “I’m not weak.”

“You do still need to get out of the car.”

Another groan, then he laughed and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, helping her to her feet before shutting the door behind her. Without another word, he led her into the building. 

Rey kept sinking into him, continual yawns parting her lips while he just laughed softly, pressing kisses into her hair. “Just a few more minutes, Rey,” he whispered, but she only hummed as she buried her face in his shoulder as they came upon the elevator, and he leaned forward to press the up button. “You’re going to be out the second you hit the pillow aren’t you?”

Another hum made him laugh, then they walked into the elevator and once the doors closed, it began to rise, bringing them that much closer to his apartment. “I’m so tired.”

A second round of kisses was pressed into her hair, the last of them lingering as he then rested his forehead against the crown of hers. “I know.”

“You’re warm.”

“Thank you,” Ben replied, then the doors opened, and he led her out into the hallway, once again searching his pocket for his keys. “We’re almost there, Rey. We’re so close.”

Sighing against him, she straightened her posture, watching him unlock the door, then he pushed it open before guiding her inside. Once he got them through the threshold, though, he kicked the door shut, and bent down near her waist. She may not have wanted him to carry her earlier, but now?

Fuck it.

Rey laughed in delight as Ben lifted her into the air, his arm coming up beneath her legs and around her back so that he was carrying her like a bride. Seconds later, her arms wrapped around his neck, her lips pressing against his neck while she chastised him in quiet little whispers that made him giggle. “You stupid fucker,” she breathed. “You scared the shit out of me.”

Laughter continued to fall freely as he walked toward the bedroom. “Sorry, I just—I’ve always wanted to do that,” he admitted. “And not as Kylo. That scene from the first season doesn’t count.”

“Mmm, I think it does. That was a good day.”

It really had been a perfect day. They’d just started really bonding, taking that step from friends to best friends, and then her character had been wounded and his character had been helpless to stop himself from trying to save her in spite of their opposing sides. He’d had to carry her through a good quarter mile of forest while running as a camera followed them on a truck, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever breathed harder than that as she clung to him, and he wound up praying he wouldn’t trip or let go. Even then with the friendship so new and fragile between them, he’d been protective, wanting to make sure she stayed safe and unharmed.

Ever since that day, they had been close, a bond had been forged between them, and while at first it hadn’t been much, now... 

Now it was something more, and he was carrying her not because some script demanded it or she’d asked him to, but because he loved her and wanted to hold her close. His heart began to flutter again as she clutched tightly at his shoulders, her fingers turning to play with the ends of his hair as he led them into the bedroom, then pressed her back into the mattress, and her head rested against a pillow. 

Once she was down, he reached over to the side of the bed, grabbing a blanket from a pile before throwing it over her exhausted form, tucking into her sides in the hopes that she would appreciate the gesture, that it would help her to ease into sleep as he prepared to go to bed with her. “Comfortable?” he asked quietly, then when she nodded, he sighed his relief, and crawled onto the mattress with her, lifting the blanket so they could share warmth beneath it as he pulled her into his arms. 

She was warm, the kind of warmth that he could just sink into forever. A fire he wouldn’t ever turn away from or try to put out, this was light, comfort—something that was pure  _ Rey _ . Giving one last sigh, he shifted behind her, one of his arms wrapping around her waist to pull her close as her back met his front, and he buried his face in the tangle of hair at the base of her neck. 

“Good night, Rey,” he whispered, leaning forward to press a kiss there as well. 

“Sweet dreams,” she replied sleepily, resting a hand over his as she yawned one last time, thenhe yawned sympathetically, and soon they both succumbed to the throes of sleep. 


	12. Epilogue

**One year later...**

Ben’s heart was pounding at the speed of light when he walked onto the set that day. That may have been in part due to the unholy amount of coffee in his bloodstream, but it probably has more to do with the fact that after a year of dating, he was about to put in motion his plan to propose to Rey.

If he were being honest, he’d known from the minute they’d admitted their feelings for each other that she was the one. There was never going to be anyone else and with every new day, he only became more certain of it. This relationship was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and as such it deserved a bold, shameless declaration of love. His partner deserved the best proposal he could give her.

As he approached Poe’s door, he felt dizzy, but in a good way that meant something exciting was happening, not that he was dreading anything. Well, technically he feared his boss saying no, but given that he’d looked between him and Rey and winked at a particular scene in the script they were due to start filming, he had a feeling that fear was unfounded.

In this episode, just before the midseason finale, Kylo was going to ask Kira to marry him. The idea to propose to his real-life partner had popped into his head as a result, and since they were together, he realized that he had a rare and unique opportunity for a proposal unlike any other. He was going to give Rey the surprise of a lifetime, assuming, of course, Poe said yes.

Proposing to one person, it would seem, sometimes involved proposing to another first.

With a nervous knock on the door, Ben stepped back, shoving his hands into his jacket pocket, where the maroon colored ring box sat burning a hole through the black fabric. God, this was foolish. Why couldn’t he get down on his knee over fucking spaghetti dinner like a normal person? What was _wrong_ with him?

Rey and the fact that she deserved better. That’s what. The incredibly unique opportunity he had. The story he could tell until they were old and gray. It was going to be epic and memorable and they were going to cherish it forever.

The door opened, a slightly tired looking Poe smiling at him as he opened it a little wider. “Hey, Ben, what are you doing here? You don’t have anything to film today.”

“I know, but I need to talk to you and I wasn’t risking this over text.” He stepped into the office, shutting the door behind him as he and Poe made their way over to his desk. “Rey and I aren’t the types to look at each other’s phones, but I wanted to be sure there was no risk of her finding out what I’m planning.”

Quirking an eyebrow, his boss sat down in his seat, his palms caressing the sides of the chair as he leaned forward. “What you’re planning?” he asked, a smirk blossoming on his face. “How does this involve me exactly?”

 _Here goes_. Taking a seat of his own, he found himself smiling. “I, uh, I’m going to ask Rey to marry me.” A feeling of warmth heated his body as he said it, his cheeks flushing a remarkable shade of crimson. “And I want to use the proposal scene you’ve written in the next episode to do it.”

The other man’s jaw fell slack, little crinkles forming by his eyes as they filled with joy. “Oh my god, are you serious?”

A nod. “Deadly.” Then he reached into his pocket, his fingers wrapping around the little ring box he’d picked out for his partner. A little snap breached the quiet of the room as he opened it, then it was glittering in the light, a beautiful array of colors shining in all directions. “Think she’ll like it?”

He leaned further over the desk, muttering quietly to himself—it sounded like he was saying good things—as he examined the ring. “Oh wow,” he breathed, taking the box from Ben’s hands and inspecting it more closely. “This is beautiful.” Looking up, his grin grew even wider. “She’s going to love it.”

“Yeah?”

“Absolutely, so…” He folded his hands over each other. “How can I help?”

Ben leaned forward, then he took the ring back, and placed it in his pocket. “As I said I want to use the proposal scene from the next episode to do it. I want you to place Rey and I on the filming schedule next week—on the day we’re not supposed to film—set up the stage, get us in costumes, make her think that we’re going to be filming like normal, and we’re going to start rolling, only this time instead of Kylo’s speech, I’m going to propose to her.”

His friend’s eyes went wide. “Oh my god, that’s brilliant.”

“It is?”

“Yes, I’m absolutely on board, one hundred percent. You’re going to have to get everyone else on set to swear to secrecy though because I can’t be the only one who knows.”

“No, they’ll be involved, too. Like I said, normal workday with a half-hour interruption early on.” Gesturing vaguely with his hands, he laughed. “Easy stuff, I think.”

Poe hummed his agreement. “Definitely easy stuff.”

Reaching across space between them, Ben shook his hand. “Good, and remember; Rey cannot find out this is happening.”

“She won’t.”

“If you breath a _word_ of this—”

“Ben.” He rested a hand on his arm. “I won’t, but you need to find a better hiding place for that ring than your pocket. She’ll find that in seconds.”

Another smile parted his lips as he rose, and made to leave the room. “Oh, don’t worry,” he replied, winking at his boss. “I will.”

*

He could remember how it had felt in the beginning as if it were only yesterday. After only a few weeks, they’d wound up coming out to the set mostly because they kept almost getting caught kissing. It had been… surprisingly easy. Everyone was happy for them, and their biggest problem—on set at least—wound up being Poe’s constant innuendos. For the most part, though, the atmosphere was overwhelmingly supportive.

Or it was until Gwen caught Ben with her mickey mouse pajama pants in one of the selfies they’d taken together and declared war, but even that had been mostly a joke. Peace was declared just days later when she learned how many times he and Rey had slept together while he was wearing them. He’d been allowed to keep the pants after that.

Coming out to the public was another thing. They weren’t exactly trying to hide it, but they certainly weren’t trying to come out and announce to the world that they were dating. Their show was just big enough that people might have started to give them a problem if they went out in the public eye.

As a result, the public had to be handled much more carefully than the set did. It wasn’t until six months had passed and Ben had moved into Rey’s apartment that they finally started holding hands in the streets and not caring if they got caught going out downtown. When they attended red carpet events, they went together, and when people asked them if they were a couple, they gave the world’s fastest confirmation and moved on with their lives.

People pestered them about it for a while, and the social media storm that surrounded it grew so intense that even they struggled to avoid it, but eventually, it began to die down, and by the time a year had passed, life felt like it was normal again. They felt like any ordinary couple, aside from the fact that he was planning to propose to her on a film set while they were in character.

By the time the morning of his proposal rolled around, Ben felt surprisingly at ease. Sure, a part of him was nervous just because this would be happening in front of an audience, but how bad could it be? He got up in front of crowds all the time, and when they got married, he’d have to make a big ole speech then, too.

This was just that last step toward that marriage, the last big milestone they would hit before they were well and truly bound to one another. Well, unless they got a dog or something, he wagered that would be bigger.

There had been a tension inside of him all week, though. He’d been a half-second away from proposing on the spot every time she did something new to make him fall further in love with her. A little voice in his head was the only thing stopping him; the voice that brought the constant reminder that he had an epic plan and a lot of people who were now in on this and couldn’t be let down.  
At least it would finally be happening that day. Within the next few hours, unless she secretly hated him the whole time, they were going to be engaged, and Rey would become his _fiance_.

His heart swelled as he flipped a pancake on the griddle, the dough sizzling for a second as he checked his half-naked body to make sure none of it had splattered onto him. Shirtless breakfast was an easy but dangerous venture that he probably shouldn’t have taken as lightly as he did.

Of course, it also had its rewards. Rey liked him when he was shirtless--well, she liked him all the time, but she particularly liked him when he was shirtless--and as a result, he always knew when she was staring at him; when she had taken the time to park herself in view of his chest, and just… watch.

A grin curled at the corner of his lips as his eyes drifted over to hers, and he set the pancake down on a plate before pouring more batter out onto the griddle. “I can feel you staring,” he told her, that grin becoming a full-on smirk as he watched the batter start cooking.

“Don’t look so fuckable at half-past five in the morning, and maybe we won’t have this problem,” she replied, causing him to snicker to himself as he flipped the pancake, then she walked across the room, and slipped her arms around his waist, pressing a kiss to the underside of his jaw as her fingers laced over his stomach. _Oh,_ that felt nice. Sometimes the best things in life were simple, weren’t they? Hugs, he realized, were phenomenally underrated.

The pancake was flipped one more time, then he set down the spatula, turned off the griddle, and turned around in her arms to pick her up, and walk her over to the kitchen counter. A giggle fell from her lips as he placed her barely covered ass on the cold granite of the countertop, then she placed her hands on his chest, tugging him close with her legs to pull him in for a kiss.

Soft little moans escaped him into the kiss, his hands drifting down to cup her ass as he moved closer and closer to her, his erection pressing up against the apex of her thighs as the kiss grew more intense. His tongue swiped gently along her lip, seeking access she quickly gave as her fingers threaded themselves in his hair, and she began to grind her hips against him.

That felt pretty damn good, too. If he had his way, they would’ve stayed like this for a while, rocking each other to completion before they finally paid attention to the poor, neglected pancakes. Unfortunately, they didn’t have much time for it. They had to be on set early that day for his proposal. As much as he desperately wanted to grind against her until he came, they just didn’t have time for it.

His soon-to-be fiance seemed to realize the same thing. Groaning softly, she pulled away, then took his cheeks in her hands, breathy laughter falling from her as she brushed a thumb over his swollen lips. “I love you, but we’ve got to eat breakfast and get to set. Poe’s going to revoke our ability to date coworkers if we arrive late one more time.”

A similar sound of displeasure left him. If only she knew that Poe was more than fine with them dating and had greenlit what was going to happen that day. “I should probably pay attention to the poor pancake I neglected to kiss you.”

“You should, yeah,” she replied, then he gave her a brief laugh, and fell silent, his eyes looking between hers, feeling more strongly than ever that he was right where he was meant to be. This day, this proposal, their relationship itself was perfect, and with that reassurance, his lips parted in a tiny hint of a smile. “What?”

“Nothing, I just…” He glanced over his shoulder, laughing again. If he didn’t look away from her now, he would probably propose on the spot and ruin everything. “I think I should focus on this pancake.”

“Pfft, should’ve thought about that before you kissed me.”

“I should’ve, yeah.”

“Was it worth it?”

“I think so, yes,” she replied, then she kissed him one last time, and he stepped back, allowing her to slide off of the counter as he continued to make their breakfast, fighting off the urge to ask her to marry him before he got the chance to make his grand gesture.

*

When he was finally in costume two hours later, it truly started to sink in what he was about to do. He was about to ask the love of his life to marry him. It was finally happening, the moment was here, and as he walked out onto the set, he fought to keep himself from trembling.

Especially when he saw her.

That day, the costuming people had put her in a teal dress with long, flowing sleeves and a skirt seemed to have far too many layers but was still beautiful nonetheless. The sight of it combined with her sitting in one of the intricate looking chairs that sat in the room that was designed to be Kira’s quarters nearly made his heart stop, but somehow it kept beating. Around her, the camera crew and light workers were setting the scene for a romantic proposal, one where Kylo would finally come in and say “fuck it all,” and ask the woman who was supposed to be his enemy to marry him.

Their characters had still been at war despite the coupling between them in the third season. Now, most of the way through season four, they’d grown enough for Kylo to finally see that nothing was worth losing her. This was a pivotal moment for him, the one where he’d give up his cause for love, show her how much he’d grown, cast aside Mustafar in favor of Alderaan, and unite himself with her to show her side how devoted he was to the cause and gain acceptance.

It was also now a big moment for his real-life relationship with her as well. This was a new beginning, a new chapter, and he couldn’t wait to find out how it started.

As he approached, he offered her a wave, but she seemed to be staring a bit too far into space to notice. Wondering what was on her mind, he cleared his throat to get her attention. “Hey,” Ben said casually, then she looked up, her breath catching visibly at the sight of him in period wear, it always had, and if he were being honest, the same thing happened to him each time.

“Hi,” she replied, beaming at him as he sat down beside her on the chaise. “What are you up to?”

“Making sure I know my lines.” He held up a paper copy of the script from behind his back, lines they’d gone over countless times—in the car, over dinner, in their trailers, in the fucking shower—highlighted in yellow marker. “They’re important. Can’t mess them up.”

That was probably a touch too obvious. If Rey didn’t suspect something was about to happen before, odds were, she did now given the eyebrow raise she gave him. “You can’t ever mess them up, Ben.”

“Maybe not, but… This is a big scene, probably the biggest one we’ve done since last year,” he replied, his cheeks growing warm as his hand started to tremble. _Shit, shit, shit_ he’d made it obvious, hadn’t he? “You think you could run the lines through with me one more time?”

His partner blinked at him for a moment, then she shrugged and leaned back against the chair. Maybe it wasn’t as obvious as he thought then if she was already willing to move past it.

It wasn’t long after that when Poe’s voice filled their ears, alerting him to the fact that it was time. “All right everyone, places, Ben, Rey I need you on set,” he announced, and Rey sighed as she patted Ben’s shoulder.

“Maybe he’ll let us do it again if we keep fucking up,” she joked as they made their way over to the little x on the floor that marked their spots.

“Maybe,” he repeated, his voice so quiet he doubted she could hear it as he tossed his script to the side, and the remainder of the crew got into position just like any other day. Even he almost felt as if they were just filming any other scene. Part of him wanted to get into character but the rest of him, thankfully, knew that wasn’t right. They had to wait. They’d film another day.

This one was all about what lay between them in reality. Kylo and Kira would get their turn. Ben and Rey came _first_.

The atmosphere shifted again as they waited for the call to action, Ben’s mouth shifting as he met her gaze, wondering if she could tell his intentions from his eyes or if she could see or sense what was about to happen. Did the thought thrill or terrify her? _I love you,_ he thought, _No matter what happens. Even if you say no._ His lips parted in a smile, one that reached his eyes, and once again he was rewarded by her breath catching, providing him one last, brief glimpse of his fiance before she slipped into character.

“ Action! ” Poe cried, then that smile fell, but something about it lingered in his body even as they both got into character, and began one of the most important scenes of the entire show.

And to his knowledge, of their entire lives.

Kira took a breath, stepping out away from the bed as she took sight of Kylo standing there, watching him where he stood leaning against the wall near her window, watching her. “You’re here,” she breathed in disbelief, then she took a few steps forward, and he stepped into the light provided by the window, lit by a very well crafted stage. This scene was going to be beautiful when they filmed it for real. “You… You can’t be here. If they find you—”

He held up a hand, waving off her concern as he stepped forward, then took in a deep breath, feeling as though he were seeing her for the first time--as if he were falling in love all over again. “I don’t care, I came here… You were right, I may be from Mustafar, but that’s not my home, not anymore,” he said softly, then he stepped forward, and reached out, waiting until she took his hand before he spoke again. “Would it be too much for me to ask for you to not kick me out the window until I finish?”

A pause, then she nodded, and one of his hands found her cheek, pulling her close until his forehead was touching hers, the touch comforting, providing him that little bit of courage to continue even though it was just a stage direction. Shortly after, he pulled back just enough so that he could see her face, but he brushed a piece of hair behind her ear, then leaned forward, and kissed her shortly and sweetly, lips barely brushing against hers as a smile broke out on his face. “I’ve been trying to find the courage to see you all day, even while I rode the miles to get here.”

Nervous sounding laughter shook her chest, then she placed a hand on his shoulder, and he could see bits of Rey peaking through the mask of Kira. She knew something was going wrong, but what it was, he had a feeling she couldn’t decide. Normally he’d hate the idea of hiding something from her, but given that they were pretending to film and he was about to reveal the secret anyway, he figured she could wait to find out. “Kylo, what’s going on?”

They were almost there. So close to where he would break the script and character and change their lives. His eyes closed, his breathing coming slowly as he struggled to control it. If he didn’t fight to keep the pace, he would start hyperventilating or fall into panic. Rey didn’t need that. Neither did he. “I am… deeply, deeply in love with you,” he told her, his voice shaking over the lump in his throat, the faux—sunlight blinding as it shone off the golden color of her skin. “Surely you must know that by now.”

“You tell me every time we part,” she reminded him. “Kylo…”

He held up a finger to her lips, silencing her before she could chastise him again. “You told me you’d let me finish.”

“This is dangerous.”

“It always has been, but it won’t have to be, Kira,” he whispered, then he took one of her hands in his, and raised it to his lips, pressing a sweet kiss to her knuckles. “I came here because for the past several years, long before my lips ever knew your kiss, long before I knew what I felt for you was love, I’ve known my destiny was entwined with yours.”

A tear made its way onto his cheek then, and he slowly began to let go of his character, becoming more and more like Ben again with every word he spoke. _Just hang on a few more seconds,_ he told himself. _Just a few more_. “I am going to leave Mustafar, I will no longer serve the first order because I want to be by your side. I want to spend the rest of my life at your side if you’ll let me, and I think we both know there’s only one way the Resistance will ever let me join its ranks, and that’s if I’m with you…”

Suddenly, he pulled his hands away from her, a move that wasn’t directed in the script, wasn’t written anywhere, and wasn’t given as instructions from Poe. This was the moment. Right there, right then, with words that weren’t written down in any script. “But what’s more important than that, is what I feel…”

Breaking away from the script completely, he made to grab hold of the ring. “And what I feel,” he said, reaching into his pocket. “Is…” His voice broke, and he could see in her face that she realized he was no longer acting, that maybe he hadn’t been all along as her jaw fell slack. “The strongest, most real thing I’ve ever felt. You…” His hand left his pocket, the box containing her ring feeling like the heaviest thing he ever had the privilege of holding. “You make me feel like every minute of my life is something I’m privileged to be living, like I’m lucky to be alive just for the chance to get to call you my best friend, much less the love of my life.”

Another nervous, shaky laugh fell from his lips, then he looked down at the box in his hands. “So, Rey,” he whispered, his voice soft enough that he knew she was the only one that heard him say her name as the words continued to fall from his lips in the easiest speech he’d ever given. “I’ve known probably from the moment my lips first touched yours that I was never going to kiss anyone else. I’ve known from that first night we spent together that in some way I loved you, I was just stubborn and took a while to figure out what it meant.”

At this, they both laughed, and Rey gave him a wide smile, her whole body leaning toward his as Ben lowered from his massive height down to one knee as directed in the script, but they were no longer doing the scene. This wasn’t just acting anymore, this was real. “But the point is, you’re everything to me, you’re the only person I can see myself spending forever with long after these cameras and the lights are gone. I sometimes think your soul might even be the other half of mine.”

“Ben,” she said, his name sounding breathless on her lips, tears springing to her eyes while he opened up the ring box in his hand, revealing a simple, glittering diamond on a silver band.

Taking one of her hands in his free one, he blinked another tear free as he smiled up at her, knowing without a doubt in his mind that she was about to say yes and wanting to savor every tiny little second of it. He still had a few more words to say after all. “I have known I wanted to ask you this for some time now, but it took Poe’s stupid script—” Laughter rose throughout the room and Rey shook her head, the memory of that first meeting flashing between their eyes. “—And actually getting off my ass to find a ring to do it, so with that said… Rey Johnson, will you marry me?”

The first noise out of her mouth was a fucking sob, tears spilling onto her cheeks and over the dimples of her smile. The second was a stuttered, watery, but mercifully clear, “Yes.”

Cheers erupted through the room, but his eyes never left hers as a relieved laugh escaped him, then he grabbed the ring from the box, slid it onto her finger, and set the velvet-covered cube down before he stood up, and bit his lip. His hands found her cheeks, her arms coming up to wrap around his waist as he pulled her in, and kissed her fiercely, causing a roar of applause to come from the cast and crew around them.

She was smiling against his lips, causing him to giggle as his lips met hers in a series of frenzied, hurried kisses that had him feeling dizzy. He’d done it, he’d asked her to marry him. Rey had just gone from his girlfriend to his _fiance_. Disbelief and joy rushed through him, a head rush passing through his mind as she pulled back from the kiss, allowing him a brief glimpse of the joy on her face.

His fiance looked like a fucking mess, there was makeup running down her cheeks and her hair was in slight disarray, but, cheesy as it sounded, he wouldn’t change a thing. In his eyes, she was perfect.  
As she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, he held her tight and lifted her from the ground, ecstasy flooding, their elegant costumes swirling out around them as they spun around in a joyous blur.

He did it. He actually did it. After a good week of dying inside trying not to ask her before his time, they were finally engaged.

And all because Poe had told them they needed to film a sex scene. The realization made him wonder if asking his boss to be his best man was unprofessional, but given all of the shenanigans that tended to go down on set, he had a feeling it would go over okay.

His head still spinning, he set her down, then she pulled back, looking into his eyes again as her hand brushed his cheek. “How the hell did you pull this off?”

“I knew what I wanted to do from the first time I saw the scene in the script,” he said softly, his voice barely audible to even himself over the sound of the people around them. “After that it was only a matter of talking to Poe, getting everything coordinated with the cameramen and crew, and getting us a day off to do this.”

“A day off?”

The grin on his face only spread wider, his fingers tracing circles into her back as he held her close. “We film the scene tomorrow, today was just for this. We get to go home once we get out of costume.”

Sniffling quietly, Rey brushed a tear from her eye. “I just can’t believe you did this for me.”

“I can’t believe you agreed to marry me,” he replied, then he looked out at the crew around them. “We should probably get off the set and start thanking people.”

Together, they looked out at the friends who had made this possible, eyes finding Poe, then Finn, Rose, Paige, Gwen, and even Armitage. They must’ve been blending into the crew when they arrived on set, since even Ben had hardly noticed anyone, and now they were all smiles, talking amongst themselves and occasionally sending glances their way.

He watched as a relieved smile parted her lips as they met the eyes of Gwen, who gave his new fiance a subtle thumbs up before resuming her conversation with Armitage. Finn and Poe were hugging, the latter of the two giving her a knowing smile over the former’s shoulder. Rose and Paige were excitedly chattering amongst themselves, the older of the two sisters brandishing a bottle of champagne that she brought away from the cameras before she popped the cork, and a brilliant spray of bubbly liquid coated the wooden floors of the fake castle set.

Cheers erupted as Ben and Rey hurriedly backed away from it, not wanting to get the alcoholic drink all over their costumes as they laughed riotously. The whole thing felt like some kind of dream, the wonderful sort that he never wanted to wake up from, and he felt tempted to pinch himself to be sure this was real.

Rey seemed awestruck by the whole thing, her eyes spacing out after a while, and he reached up in concern, his hand caressing her jaw, tilting her head up toward his as he looked down at her. “Are you okay?”

Nodding eagerly, she placed her ringed hand over his, causing his smile to widen at the sight of the diamond glittering out of the corner of his eye. “I’ve never been better,” she answered him. “This is just one of those moments where life feels so, so perfect that I can’t believe any of it is real.”

His thumb brushed over her ring, a renewed sense of happiness flooding his veins as he realized that it was truly there, he’d proposed to her, and she… she said yes. “I can’t either.”

“I love you,” she breathed, and she’d said it a few times already that day, but it was still wonderful to hear nonetheless.

He knew she loved him. Still, if she wanted to tell him once a year or once a minute he would be quite content either way.

The grin parting his lips fell slightly, then he leaned forward, and reunited them with hers, keeping the kiss short given the size of company they had, but he hoped she could still feel the _I love you, too_ , on them nonetheless.

When he pulled away, the grin returned, but his voice was low and deep, the dulcet tones of it hiding beneath the sound of conversations around them. “How long do you want to wait? To get married, that is.”

“However long you want, but if you wanted to I think I could probably ditch the set and elope with you right now,” she replied, causing him to laugh as they swayed in their little bubble. “But I think Poe would kill us if we didn’t plan something we could invite him to.”

A fair point. He did still have to ask Poe to be his best man, after all.

More laughter was shared between them, then she stepped back, but took his hand in hers. “We should get out of costume before someone else attempts to spray us down with a champagne bottle.”

“I was hoping that sentence would have a different ending.”

“But Poe would—”

“Poe would kill us,” he finished for her, then she giggled again, and he tugged on her hand. “Come on, let’s get home. I want to celebrate this… without an audience.”

“I don’t know, we’ve already taken off our clothes in front of most of them.”

“ Rey. ”Another broad smile, then she tugged on the center of his doublet as she pulled him close. “Let’s go home.”

“Let’s go home,” he repeated, then she let go of his doublet, and took his hand with both of hers, and together, they made their way from the set with a chorus of cheers following them, sending them off into the next stage of their relationship. They were engaged now, there was a ring on her finger, and soon enough?

He knew she was going to be putting one on his, and he would never, ever let it leave his finger. As long as he lived, she was his and he was hers, and all of that was just beginning.

**Author's Note:**

> The next chapter should differ some from the original story, but I felt like this scene was too important to exclude. I'd been really excited to dig into Ben's thoughts here :D


End file.
